Historic A. Aubrey Bodine Photography Archive Preserves Maryland's Architectural Heritage

The photographic legacy of A. Aubrey Bodine (1906-1970) continues to serve as an important historical record of Maryland's architectural heritage, particularly through images like his 1953 photograph "Cornhill Street in Annapolis" that documents the evolving landscape of Anne Arundel county. This specific image captures four Colonial and early Federal homes, noting that all four houses were originally the same height until about 1900 when the house on the left underwent a roof raising, illustrating the architectural modifications common in historic preservation efforts.

Bodine's significance extends far beyond single images, as he was regarded in photographic circles worldwide as one of the finest pictorialists of the twentieth century. His work was exhibited in hundreds of prestigious shows and scores of museums, where he consistently won awards against top competition. Beginning his career in 1923 covering stories for the Baltimore Sunday Sun, Bodine traveled throughout Maryland creating remarkable documentary pictures that combined artistic design and lighting effects far beyond typical newspaper photography standards.

The photographer's approach was fundamentally creative, treating the camera and darkroom equipment as tools similar to a painter's brush or sculptor's chisel. Bodine studied art principles at the Maryland Institute College of Art and believed in photography as a creative discipline. His craftsmanship involved constant experimentation, with some pictures composed entirely in the camera viewfinder while others underwent extensive manipulation including dye work, pencil marking, scraping, and photographic cloud additions. As Bodine explained, he worked from the model like a painter, selecting features that suited his sense of mood, proportion and design—he didn't take pictures, he made pictures.

The comprehensive archive available at www.aaubreybodine.com contains more than 6,000 photographs spanning Bodine's 47-year career, providing researchers, historians, and preservationists with invaluable documentation of Maryland's changing landscape and architectural heritage. Visitors to www.aaubreybodine.com can view these images and order reprints or note cards, while the full biography "A Legend In His Time" by Harold A. Williams, Bodine's editor and closest friend, is also accessible through the website. This extensive collection serves as both an artistic treasure and important historical record, preserving visual documentation of architectural changes and community development throughout Maryland during the mid-twentieth century.