Rock Hall Fall Fest Highlights Aubrey Bodine Photo By Bob Ford

The greatest Maryland photographer of traditional life on the waters of the Chesapeake Bay? There has been a lot of competition for that title over the decades since the arrival of modern photography.

It could be, however, that the choice would be the photographer who is also the best for Maryland street scenes, trains, horses, architecture, cities, and people.

That’s a mouthful, but A. Aubrey Bodine gave his fans and followers a lot to chew on during nearly 50 years of photography for The Baltimore Sunpapers. Bodine, who joined the Sun as a messenger in 1920 at the age of 14; was a commercial photographer for the Sun by the time he was 18; and was the Feature Photographer at 21, a title he retained until his death in the darkroom in 1970.

Bodine shot everything, but his mastery of capturing the world of waterman was unmatched. His photograph of Chesapeake Bay oyster dredgers that ran in the Sunday Sun Magazine in 1948 is considered high among his most iconic images.

It is with pride that Rock Hall FallFest was allowed to use that photograph as the centerpiece for the annual FallFest promotional poster. Bodine’s daughter, Jennifer B. Bodine, who curates her father’s work along with her husband, Richard Orban, was delighted to give her approval.

“I think Dad would have loved it. He just loved the Bay and shooting pictures of it,” Bodine said.

Aubrey Bodine only worked in black-and-white, befitting his work in a newspaper world that was only black-and-white at that time, but Jennifer allowed a colorization, believed to be a first for Bodine’s work, for the FallFest poster.

“He was a one-trick pony, but it was a helluva trick,” Jennifer Bodine said in a recent interview with the Easton Star-Democrat.

The image of oyster dredgers won contests around the work, including first place in a 1949 contest by Popular Photography Magazine that drew more than 51,000 entries. The stormy, inhospitable setting featured dredging skipjacks Maggie Lee and, in the background, Lucy Tyler.

The colorization for FallFest was done by Jon Snyder, an award-winning longtime graphic artist and photographer for The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News. It was delicate work to keep the integrity of the image while making it suitable for a lively street fair festival like Rock Hall FallFest.

The 28^th annual renewal of the event is this Saturday, Oct. 11 from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Main Street in Rock Hall. FallFest celebrates the October opening of the commercial oyster season, as well as the town’s long history of promoting live music.

There will be six live music acts playing in succession during the event on two stages. Main Street will be lined with artisan vendors, and there will be plentiful food and drink. On a given year, as many as 6,000 oysters on the half-shell will be consumed.

The non-profit FallFest has free admission and free nearby parking, and all the proceeds go back into the community. The major benefactors, befitting the twin passions of the event, are the Kent County Waterman’s Association Scholarship Fund, and The Mainstay, the iconic Main Street music venue that helped birth FallFest.

Bodine’s contribution is added to a list of previous featured artists that includes the late Chestertown painter Jack Fancher, local photographer JP Henry, the late Heather Davidson, another noted outdoors photographer; and Ziggy Carter, Rock Hall’s most unique artist-in-residence.

At the FallFest merchandise tent on Main Street during the event, along with T-shirts bearing the poster image, and FallFest hats, there will be a limited number of suitable-for-framing poster/prints of the Bodine poster. These are in slipcases with card stock backing and are offered in a small numbered run bearing an authentic reproduction of Bodine’s signature.

Bodine actually became a Sun photographer by accident. His messenger job was near the darkroom and he volunteered to learn developing film for the staff photographers who had little interest in the task.

His later promotion to Feature Photographer – there was only one in the building – came after the incumbent was found to have rigged a wild turkey photo by tying the bird’s leg to keep it in the frame.

Bodine was a master shooter, but also a master mechanic in the darkroom. He used chemicals in ways that no one else imagined to get certain results on the glass plates, and thought nothing of adding brooding clouds or other additional elements to existing frames.

“He was doing Photoshop-type stuff – multiple images, compositing, moving things in the images, creating an image rather than just taking a shot,” Richard Orban, himself the son of a noted photographer, said in the Star-Democrat interview. “He created a photograph; he didn’t just take a photograph.”

In that sense, Bodine might have delighted to have his celebrated oyster dredging image cast in a new light with colorization. We’ll never know, but we know that it looks pretty good, and Rock Hall FallFest is proud to present it.

For more information visit: www.rockfallfest.org

Bob Ford