the photos of A. Aubrey Bodine

dasBlute · Dec 22, 2010

I've seen some of his work in an article in B&W mag, as well as
in the ads section in the back. Here's a set of 50 taken in
Baltimore, quite a nice selection:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/bal-bodine-pg,0,4112830.photogallery

-Tim

Jeff Kubach · Dec 22, 2010

I enjoyed looking at those pictures. Thanks for the heads up!

Jeff

bsdunek · Dec 22, 2010

The man was good!

Chazzy · Dec 22, 2010

I've been a fan for years and have several of his books. They appear on eBay from time to time and are well worth buying. The most recent one that I know of is Bodine's Chesapeake Bay Country, edited by Jennifer B. Bodine, and published by Tidewater Publishers, I have the second edition, from 2006. The modernists tried for many years to keep the work of Pictorialists like Bodine out of galleries, but in recent years Pictorialism seems to have come out into the open again.

toro_mike · Dec 22, 2010

I thoroughly enjoyed the photos. Thanks for posting!

Mike

cowanw · Dec 22, 2010

Chazzy said:
I've been a fan for years and have several of his books. They appear on eBay from time to time and are well worth buying. The most recent one that I know of is Bodine's Chesapeake Bay Country, edited by Jennifer B. Bodine, and published by Tidewater Publishers, I have the second edition, from 2006. The modernists tried for many years to keep the work of Pictorialists like Bodine out of galleries, but in recent years Pictorialism seems to have come out into the open again.

Whie I don't disagree with your premise, I don't think there is a better example of modernism than the first photo of the series
Marble steps

mjs · Dec 22, 2010

Chazzy said:
I've been a fan for years and have several of his books. They appear on eBay from time to time and are well worth buying. The most recent one that I know of is Bodine's Chesapeake Bay Country, edited by Jennifer B. Bodine, and published by Tidewater Publishers, I have the second edition, from 2006. The modernists tried for many years to keep the work of Pictorialists like Bodine out of galleries, but in recent years Pictorialism seems to have come out into the open again.

I'm curious, Charles: why do you call him a pictorialist?

Mike

Chazzy · Dec 22, 2010

mjs said:
I'm curious, Charles: why do you call him a pictorialist?

Mike

Because that's how he's classified in Christian A. Peterson's After the Photo-Secession: American Pictorial Photography, 1910-1955, for openers. Everyone ought to read the Peterson book and discover the photographers Beaumont Newhall and Ansel Adams didn't want us to see. A Bodine print is on the book's cover.

dasBlute · Dec 23, 2010

I had first noticed his nautical images some of which have a
'pictorialist' look to them - a little soft, glowing, 'wistful',

But his interests allowed [or work demanded] a
documentary style as well. He covered some ground...

thanks, for the pictorialist reference...

-Tim

mjs · Dec 23, 2010

Chazzy said:
Because that's how he's classified in Christian A. Peterson's After the Photo-Secession: American Pictorial Photography, 1910-1955, for openers. Everyone ought to read the Peterson book and discover the photographers Beaumont Newhall and Ansel Adams didn't want us to see. A Bodine print is on the book's cover.

Maybe I just don't like rigid, over-simplistic classifications, I don't know. I've seen his work before and especially like his photographs of ships and seascapes. Nevertheless, while some of his work does at least remind one of pictorialism, other of his work is documentary, other is thoroughly modern, and some would fit right into the F/64 philosophy. I haven't read Peterson's book and have no real interest in doing so, but just because some guy expresses an opinion in a book doesn't make it a fact to me. I'll just go on admiring Mr. Bodine as an excellent photographer and leave it at that, I guess.

Everything goes in cycles, I think. Pictorialism is today's darling while modernism and especially the F/64 school is considered dowdy, old-fashioned, and out of touch. This was not always so and it is probably valuable to remember that it is unlikely to always remain the way it is today. I am not an admirer of pictorialism; it speaks greatly of Mr. Bodine's work that both you and I find much to admire of his work.

Mike

c6h6o3 · Dec 23, 2010

Some nice things, but the slideshow didn't include his most famous image, Dead Link Removed. It won a first prize in the Popular Photography annual contest in 1949, which paid a cash prize of $5,000.

the photos of A. Aubrey Bodine

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