Photographer A. Aubrey Bodine's image "Harford County Hops Farm (1946)" offers a glimpse into a bygone era of community agricultural traditions. The photograph, available through www.aaubreybodine.com, depicts a harvest party on a Forest Hill farm where seventy-five guests were invited to help pick hops. As long poles bearing hops vines were brought in from the fields, the guests picked the flowers from the stalks, collectively harvesting seven bales of hops. The work was followed by a picnic lunch, emphasizing the social aspect of the event.
Bodine (1906-1970) is regarded as one of the finest pictorialists of the twentieth century. His photographs were exhibited in prestigious shows and museums worldwide, earning top awards. His career began in 1923 covering stories for the Baltimore Sunday Sun, and he traveled throughout Maryland capturing documentary pictures of various occupations and activities. These images are noted for their artistic quality, often featuring design and lighting effects beyond typical newspaper standards.
Bodine submitted his work to national and international salon competitions, consistently winning honors. He studied art principles at the Maryland Institute College of Art, viewing the camera and darkroom as tools akin to a painter's brush. His craftsmanship involved experimentation, including composing in the viewfinder, working on negatives with dyes and intensifiers, pencil marking, and scraping to achieve desired effects. He added clouds photographically and made other manipulations, rationalizing that like a painter, he selected features suited to his sense of mood, proportion, and design. For Bodine, the picture was paramount, not the method of creation.
More than 6,000 photographs spanning Bodine's 47-year career are available for viewing on www.aaubreybodine.com, where images can be ordered as reprints and note cards. The full biography of Bodine, written by his editor Harold A. Williams, is also available on the website. This particular photograph, identified by image ID 48-294, exemplifies Bodine's ability to document everyday life with artistic flair. The image not only preserves a moment of agricultural history but also illustrates the importance of community and shared labor in Maryland's rural past.
