Photo-essayist perfected his images with darkroom artistry

Mr. Bodine’s career began in 1923 when he was an office boy at the Baltimore Sun and began submitting photographs to the editor. Soon his work became the centerpiece of that newspaper’s Sunday photo section, and he continued to document life in the Chesapeake Bay area until his death in 1970. He also submitted photographs to various salons and competitions, winning numerous awards and international recognition over the years.

Mr. Bodine was not so much a “hard news” photographer, who would rush to the burning building or the crime scene, but a photo-essayist, whose artistry captured both beauty and drama in the Chesapeake Bay area and its people. He found memorable images everywhere, showing us dockworkers, industrial equipment, nuns huddled together on a snowy sidewalk, a child asleep in a strawberry field, or fog settling on the harbor with lights from cargo ships thrusting daggers into glassy water.

His daughter Jennifer, a retired trial lawyer who now devotes herself to managing and showcasing the more than 50,000 images in her father’s estate, describes him as an intuitive photographer and an artist in the darkroom. Speaking last week at the museum, she said her father didn’t just “take” pictures, he “made” pictures.

As a child, she often accompanied him on photo shoots, helping him with bulky photographic equipment. She saw first-hand his drive for perfection, for finding just the right angle or just the right moment to create an image. Then, with the base photograph in hand, he would work his magic in the darkroom, manipulating negatives with dyes and intensifiers, pencil marking or scraping, even adding elements (he compiled a bank of cloud photos to draw from, for instance) until he created what he determined to be his ideal image.

Mr. Bodine worked all the time, according to his daughter. He believed that every photographer should have a good alarm clock, because he found his best pictures just before and during sunrise. She also recalls that he was fearless in the face of personal danger, heading alone into potentially dangerous sections of town in the middle of the night or hanging off the side of a boat although he couldn’t swim. The result of his pursuit of perfection is a remarkable body of work and a legacy that is only recently coming back to public notice.

The exhibit in the Coggins Gallery at the museum includes a small sampling of Bodine’s photographs, but several additional images are being shown on a flat-screen panel at the gallery entrance. More can be seen on the website, www.aaubreybodine.com.

THINKING IN THE ABSTRACT

Why is this art? On Sunday May 18 at 2 p.m., Georgia Southern University professor Dr. Bruce Little will tackle that question in a free gallery talk at the Morris Museum of Art. The basis for the discussion will be the special exhibit, “Something to Look Forward To: Abstract Art by 22 Americans of African Descent,” a touring exhibit truly impressive in strength and scope. It will remain on display through May 25. www.themorris.org

ART ON DOWN THE ROAD

The Fire House Gallery in Louisville, Ga., is featuring new work by Augusta State University professor Kristin Casaletto. The exhibit is titled “88 Square Feet: The Art of the Large-Scale Woodcut.” www.galleryafire.com

In Madison, Ga., the Pantheon Gallery has scheduled “In the Company of Horses: an Equine Art Show” featuring the paintings of Mary Leslie. The show opens May 30 with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. Mary Leslie and her husband moved from Atlanta to “the country” in 2000, and since 2005 she has concentrated on painting the horses and dogs that share her life. Following the Pantheon exhibit, she’ll be showing work at the Ice House Gallery in Madison. www.marylesliestudio.com

The Aiken Artist Guild’s summer juried show will open on May 21 at the Aiken Arts Center, along with the work of Martha McClard. Both shows will continue through June 26. In the Aiken Artist Guild gallery within the center, Kelly Lapen is the May artist, with Bill Updergraff to follow in June. www.aikencenterforthearts.org

At the Telfair Museum in Savannah, current exhibits include “Picturing Savannah: The Art of Christopher A. D. Murphy.” The first large-scale retrospective examination of

Murphy’s work, the exhibit features 120 works, of which 18 are on loan from the Morris Museum of Art. Christopher Murphy Jr. (1902-1973) is among a family of artists important to Savannah’s cultural history, and their work has been exhibited in several smaller shows at the Morris. By the way, Augusta State University archeology professor Chris Murphy is the artist’s nephew. He’ll be doing the next brown-bag lunch lecture June 4 at the Augusta Museum of History, talking about “History and Archeology at the Augusta Arsenal.

RIVER DAYS FUNDRAISER

The North Augusta Arts & Heritage Center has scheduled a fundraising event Friday, May 30, from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. at the North Augusta Community Center. There will be a silent auction, musical entertainment and heavy hors d’oeuvres. This relatively new organization is dedicated to historical preservation, education and the arts, and the center will be housed in the North Augusta Municipal Building now under construction. Call (803) 278-1805 for more information.