Paul Gibson, decoy maker, 1950

This collection holds over 1,000 photographic prints created by A. Aubrey Bodine (1906-1970) that depict a wide variety of subjects. Bodine was a Maryland native who worked for decades as a photojournalist for the “Baltimore Sun.” Some of the images in this collection were taken to be featured in the newspaper but others were for personal use or publication in one of his books.

The majority of prints depict people and places in Maryland but there are also images that show locations in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maine, and Mexico as well as several cities in Germany, Hungary, and Austria. Additionally, there are images of notable personalities such as decoy maker Lem Ward (1896-1984), model Jean Patchett (1926-2002), pilot Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974), and author H. L. Mencken (1880-1956).

There are many different locations in Maryland that are depicted such as Baltimore (including Druid Hill Park, Mount Vernon Place, the Enoch Pratt Library, the Walters Art Museum, and the Peabody Library); the Chesapeake Bay Bridge; Smith Island; Assateague Island; and various mountains, valleys, small farms, and bodies of water. Bodine often photographed the same location multiple times and in different years to show not only how Maryland continued to change but also his evolution as a photographer.

The majority of photographs are portraits but a few depict movement in subjects such as dancers, actors on stage, hunters, students at Roland Park Country School setting their uniforms on fire, and U.S. Army Paratroopers in action.

The prints are in black and white and are either 8 x 10 inches or 11 x 14 inches. Bodine doctored some of the photos during the development process in order to produce his ideal image.