I do like to visit charity shops, mostly in search of weird vinyl, but anything related to photography will always catch my eye too and so it was with this recent discovery and purchase, a book titled The Face Of Virginia, a pictorial study by A. Aubrey Bodine. The man himself is described on the inside jacket thusly:
Aubrey Bodine has been taking pictures for the Baltimore Sunday Sun for 35 years, and he is practically an institution in Maryland.
He also has won national and international recognition for his work, including probably a thousand ribbons, medals, and trophies. One of his pictures won a $5000 prize, and fourteen of them are on permanent exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution.
No mean photographer then, and a look at just a few of the photos from the state of Virginia in this book will demonstrate that superbly. His write up on Wikipedia – A. Aubrey Bodine – is very interesting too, especially for his photographic techniques and his use of darkroom tricks to enhance some of his pictures.
The book’s inner covers, both front and back, are decorated with a delightful hand drawn map by Richard Q. Yardley, cartoonist and fellow worker on the Baltimore Sunday Sun.
And now for a small selection of Bodine’s photos from the book, all of which are accompanied by great historical information in the publication making it well worth tracking down and checking out for yourself should you get the chance:
Astronauts! The first Americans into space trained with NASA at Langley Field in Virginia as seen in this photograph from August 1959 showing off four of the Original Seven. Left to right are John H. Glenn Jr (third up and first into orbit), Virgil I. Grissom (second up), Alan B. Shepard Jr (first up), and Malcolm Scott Carpenter (fourth up).
One of 6000 ships shipping cargo from Hampton Roads to nearly 350 ports (“in the free world” according to the book) every year. At the time of printing about 200000 tonnes of tobacco was exported annually.
A worker showing off a Smithfield ham. According to Virginia law only the four packing companies in Smithfield were permitted to produce it and its distinctive flavour came from feeding the hogs peanuts then hanging the hams over hickory log fires for weeks. Sounds gorgeous.
A collection of religious buildings. Top left is Abingdon Church. Top right is Christ Church or King Carter‘s Church (because the cost of building was paid by him). Bottom left is Ware Church. Bottom right is One-Room Shrine, birthplace of Walter Reed, the physician who discoverd the cause of yellow fever.
Falls Church in Fairfax County, Virginia. During the American Revolution it was used as a recruiting station, a hospital, and a stable for Union troops.
The impressive-looking George Washington Masonic National Memorial Temple in Alexandria on what was the first proposed site of the National Capitol building. The tower rises in three stages to a stepped pyramid 400 feet high and the cornerstone was laid in 1923. The total cost of the temple at the time of publication was $5 million with the money being contributed by over 3 million Masons.
A young boy clutching daffodils grown in Gloucester and Mathews counties and shipped to northern markets in March and April. The daffodils are shipped, not the young boy. At least, that’s how I’m interpreting it.
On the Blue Ridge Parkway connecting with the Skyline Drive can be seen the two peaks named Sharp Top and Flat Top. I’ll leave you to guess which one is which. The Virginia stone for the Washington Monument came from Sharp Top.
The last of many ferries that once crossed the Potomac at White’s Ferry near Leesburg is the converted military landing barge, the General Jubal Early. I particularly like the sign dictating the fares and instructions for summoning the ferry.
Situated in Lynchburg, the Methodist-related liberal arts college, the Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, was the first woman’s college south of the Potomac to be granted a Phi Beta Kappa charter. Whatever that means. Pictured is the Herbert C. Lipscomb library.
And now for one of Virginia’s most famous exports, tobacco, grown in more than half of the state’s counties. Of the four types of tobacco – Flue-cured (also known as Bright), Burley (light air-cured), Fire-cured, and Virginia “sun-cured” – the picture above shows Flue-cured.
A picture showing tobacco hands working the labour-demanding harvest which employed at the time of the photograph 64300 farm families and a quarter of a million seasonal workers.
More tobacco hands outside a barn where the crop is flue-cured. Flues conduct heat into the tightly-constructed building, drying and treating them and bringing them to the desired bright colours.
Cotton, once a major industry but at this time of far less importance, being picked by hand.
The largest single-unit textile mill in the world, Dan River Mills in Danville. The company employed 10500 people to operate 9000 looms and 450000 spindles. Competition from abroad meant that in the mid 2000s the firm was dissolved.
A great description for this photo of Barter Theatre in Abingdon which I’ll include verbatim:
In 1932, during the depression, Robert Porterfield and a group of unemployed New York actors opened the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, a summer resort in the Virginia Highlands. Anything edible, from huckleberries to hams, was accepted as payment for tickets. The theatre has been going ever since. A number of famous actors have trained at Abingdon, including Gregory Peck. In 1946 it became the State Theatre of Virginia; the first state-subsidized theatre in America. Tickets are no longer bartered except for old customers. The theatre is open from June through September.
Carving from seasoned wood and taking care of both colour and balance a Chincoteague waterman is seen here making duck and geese decoys.
Two men digging around a shattered hulk of a derelict shipwreck at Assateague, an island searched many times for the treasure of Charles Wilson, a pirate who allegedly buried “in ten iron-bound chests, bars of silver, gold, diamonds and jewels to the sum of £200000” between three cedar trees near Chincoteague Bay.
The Victory Monument commemorating the American alliance with the French and their subsequent victory over the British general Lord Cornwallis who surrendered in 1781 after his troops were besieged at Yorktown by Washington and Rochambeau on land, and by Count de Grasse at sea.
To finish with – at least for now; I might put some more of Aubrey Bodine’s pictures from Virginia from this book up at some point – a lovely shot of Jamestown Island, a historic spot mostly marsh and woodland. At the time of landing the island was actually a peninsula but natural erosion has played its part in transforming this beautiful landscape.
Recent Comments