Snowy Creek by the Sycamore

A Scene Like Youthful Memories of Winters Past


A quiet Winter scene.

Sunday afternoons in my youth it was a treat to sit down with the Sunday Sun 'Brown Section.' It was a magazine insert into the Sunday paper, sort of like Parade is today. But the 'Brown Section' was so much richer than today's Sunday magazines, instead of a pop culture roundup the 'Brown Section' covered the life of the community.

One aspect of the 'Brown Section' was always a new collection of photographs by A. Aubrey Bodine telling some story of the life of Baltimore or the surrounding Maryland countryside. He was to Baltimore what Holsinger was to Charlottesville, sort of a photographer laurate.

Misty harbor scenes with ships, landmarks in all seasons and those famous white marble steps in Highlandtown all became subjects for Bodine's keen eye. I loved his work! When the Baltimore Cathedral was under construction, Bodine climbed to the top to capture stonemasons building this modern structure with their ancient craft. You can see how he sparked the imagination of his readers. He worked for the Sun for fifty years but showed and sold his photographs in galleries as well. Today his daughter maintains a collection of his work, the A Aubrey Bodine Site [click to read].