A. Aubrey Bodine
[3] Bodine exhibited his pictorial photography across the United States and around the world, in competitions that attracted top art photographers.
[4] Bodine's staff position on the Baltimore Sunday Sun put him into the photojournalistic milieu, with its roots in straight unenhanced photography.
In 1924, Bodine, age 18, was promoted to commercial photographer and his formal photography career at The Sunday Sun began.
[11] The Sunday Sun then ran an assortment of local feature stories and pictures about recent events.
[12] The influences of the painterly pictorialist aesthetic and the subject-oriented newspaper profession formed the basis of Bodine's photographic legacy.
This new format told readers in story form what was going on in and around Maryland, featuring new techniques in writing and design.
His subject matter included: maritime; ports; heavy industry; assorted occupations; trains; recreation; people; local political personalities and more.
They are Bodines—genuine works of art produced over a period of twenty years by A. Aubrey Bodine, photographic director of the Magazine.
The club sponsored local exhibits, called 'salons', and participated in national and international photographic competitions.
Formal instruction in photography was limited; the camera clubs provided a learning opportunity and a forum for theoretical discussion.
[24] He was a charter member of the re-organized Photographic Society of America (PSA), the umbrella organization affiliated with camera clubs, throughout the United States and foreign countries.
[28] In 1946 he was named a Fellow of the Photographic Society of America “for outstanding press and marine photography, inspirational teaching and creative pictorial work.” In 1965 Bodine was named Honorary Fellow of the Photographic Society of America, praising him “for his talent, accomplishments and encouraging influence in photography as an art, and for his devoted service to the P.S.A.
He exhibited in Barcelona, Bucharest, Delhi, Ghent, Karachi, Singapore, Sydney and Queensland, Australia, Vienna and Zagreb, Yugoslavia.
He won major awards in Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Canada, Cuba, England, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Luxemburg, Malaya, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Republic of China, the Republic of South Africa, Romania, the Soviet Union, Spain, Sweden, and Yugoslavia.
He worked closely with the NPPA’s first president, Joseph Costa, a New York Daily News photographer, in the forming of a national organization to promote respect and recognition for the profession of photojournalism.
[34] He was a feature photographer working with the advantage of a public that was thrilled when Bodine arrived to take a picture.
The NPPA April, 1957 newsletter elaborated on the new award: "Bodine had the highest point score in the whole competition.
Camera" magazine: a shot entitled "Two Nuns" in the 1935 premiere issue, an untitled industrial image in 1936, and "Contour Plowing" in 1937.
Bodine was represented among a cross section of the photographic elite, notably: Cecil Beaton, Dorothea Lange, Berenice Abbott, Imogen Cunningham, George Hurrell, Margaret Bourke-White, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Edward Weston, and Brett Weston.
"Choptank Oyster Dredgers" won first prize, a $5,000 savings bond, as "best black and white picture" in a 1949 "Popular Photography" magazine contest which attracted 51,038 entries.
Next year’s "Popular Photography’s" contest, which drew 53,554 entries, Bodine's "Early Morning Charge" won second prize.
Additional books, exhibitions and internet websites have been organized and maintained during the 2000s by his daughter, Jennifer Bodine.
In addition to cameras and tripods, he had a machete, shovel, child's white parasol, bee smoker, compass, toilet paper, and galoshes and old shoes for swamp jobs.
The parasol, spotted and stained, replaced the usual flashgun reflector when he needed a softer light.
To the editor of "Minicam Photography" magazine Bodine wrote: “Only an experienced photographer would know how to make a decent night picture, and get the lines straight, exposure correct, sufficient imagination to make it on a rainy night, and likewise protect his camera from the rain, and be skillful enough to watch the automobile traffic, especially from side streets.
At one time the PSA circulated a one-man Bodine show that included eleven different photographic processes.
Finished exhibition prints from his early period are predominantly in non-silver processes, particularly carbro, bromoil, and gum bichromate, and on a variety of paper surfaces.
To create a well-defined moon or sun, Bodine placed an appropriate size coin on the paper during the darkroom exposure.
He added specks of white to simulate snow or rain in his photographs, frequently on the overall image, or, in many instances, simply on certain areas.
He used paintbrush and dye to paint details onto the negative for more moonlight reflecting on the water or when he felt additional white highlights would be an improvement.
