A. Aubrey Bodine

A. Aubrey Bodine (1906–1970) was an American photographer and photojournalist for The Baltimore Sun's Sunday Sun Magazine, also known as the brown section, for fifty years. Bodine is known for his images of Maryland landmarks and traditions. Bodine's books include My Maryland, Chesapeake Bay and Tidewater, Face of Maryland, Face of Virginia, and Guide to Baltimore and Annapolis. He was born July 21, 1906, in Baltimore, Maryland. After entering professional photography in the mid-1920s Bodine's artistic style developed from three distinct affiliations: The Baltimore Sun, the Photographic Society of America (PSA), and the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA). Bodine exhibited his pictorial photography across the United States and around the world, in competitions that attracted top art photographers. Bodine's staff position on the Baltimore Sunday Sun put him into the photojournalistic milieu, with its roots in straight unenhanced photography. In 1920, age fourteen, A. Aubrey Bodine went to work at Baltimore's The Baltimore Sun as a messenger. At age fifteen, he transferred to the commercial art department. He assisted a staff photographer and Bodine took a number of the pictures. Bodine's career of shooting pictures for the "Baltimore Sunpapers" (as they were colloquially referred to by native Baltimoreans - The Sun, founded 1837 by Arunah Shepherdson Abell, with the additional The Sunday Sun in 1901, followed by The Evening Sun in 1910) started here. Bodine was also taking pictures on his own time with his own Kodak Brownie box camera. The "Sunpapers" photographic department was next to the commercial art department. Bodine, when permitted, mixed photographers’ chemicals, developed pictures and made prints. This is where and when his darkroom work began. At that time the offices and printing of "The Sun" were located at what became known as "Sun Square", the southwest corner of Charles Street and Baltimore Street (from 1906-1950), and during his last twenty years at the paper's new headquarters and printing plant (on the site of the old Calvert Street Station of the Northern Central Railroad) at the southeastern corner of North Calvert Street and between East Centre, East Franklin and Bath Streets.