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Chesapeake Bay and Tidewater
By A. Aubrey Bodine
THIS IS THE FIRST photographic study ever published of the historic
Chesapeake and its fabulous country. It has been compiled by one of
America’s most distinguished photographers.
The 220 magnificent photographs in this 144-page book were selected by Mr.
Bodine as his favorites from the many thousands of pictures he has
made of the Bay and of tidewater Maryland, Delaware and Virginia
during the past twenty-seven years.
They range from a breath-taking view of a tidewater mill that ground grain for
Washington’s army to a dramatic photograph - a study of power and
action - of the liner United States; at Newport News, from a
classic portrait of a storm-soaked waterman to a helicopter view of
the brigade of Naval Academy midshipmen on parade, the first such “still”
picture ever made.
There are pictures that depict the Bay as a great artery, pictures that show the
tremendous resources of the Bay, and a great variety of memorable
photographs that portray all manner of tidewater life.
Some of the photographs capture scenes that have long since disappeared from the
Bay - the now outlawed sink boxes, picturesque old sailing craft,
steamboat races and forgotten steamboat wharves. Several of the
pictures, among the first that Mr. Bodine ever made on the Bay, were
taken on glass plate negatives. A great many of the photographs are a
part of the Bodine collection of 700 prints which has been assembled
by the historic Mariners’ Museum in Newport News.
Every picture in the book is technically flawless - the work of a master craftsman.
And, even more important, each picture - whether of a sailboat beating down the Bay
or of a tidewater manor house at sundown - captures some of the
beauty, the mood, the very essence of the Bay.
The endpaper map - drawn especially for this book - is the work of the Sunpapers’
cartoonist, Richard Q. Yardley.
Chesapeake Bay and Tidewater is a companion to
My Maryland, Mr. Bodine’s
best selling pictorial study of his native state, which has been
hailed by critics, editors and artists as one of the most outstanding
and unusual books of its kind.
Cover: Menhaden fishing in the lower Bay.
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“COMBINE the qualities of authentic genius with lifelong love of a chosen work.
Add to that a sense of beauty and of drama and excitement.
Add to that the rarest of all forms of the imagination - sensitivity.
The sum of these is Aubrey Bodine.”
Those words, written for the foreword to Mr. Bodine’s
first book, My Maryland, are a good summation of the man
and a key to his phenomenal success as a photographer.
In the twenty-seven years he has been taking pictures for the
Baltimore Sunday Sun, Mr. Bodine has won national and international
recognition for his work as well as hundreds of ribbons and medals.
His largest award was a cash first prize of $5,000 for the picture,
Oyster Dredgers (see back cover), in a contest sponsored by
the magazine Photography, which drew 52,018 entries:
For his outstanding work in bringing a new concept of artistic
expression to newspaper photography, he has been awarded a Fellowship
in the Photographic Society of America. He also has been named a fellow
in the National Press Photographers Association, first photographer to
achieve both honors.
Mr. Bodine has roamed all over Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay
country in search of the unusual, the picturesque and the beautiful.
(Although he won’t admit it, he probably has a better personal
knowledge of the Bay and of tidewater than any other non-waterman.)
In the course of his work Mr. Bodine has photographed all manner of men,
places and events. He has waded half a mile through swampland to get a
picture of a muskrat house; he has waited hours to get the right
shadows on a manor house wall; he has climbed to the top of the Bay
bridge; he has slept on the decks of Bay boats; and he has missed
hundreds of meals just so he could get the right picture at the right
time.
It is this devotion to his work - plus his artistic ability and imagination
- that has made him one of America’s outstanding photographers.
Harold A. Williams
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