Historic Bay Bridge Construction Documented in Bodine's Photographic Legacy

The construction of Maryland's Bay Bridge in 1950 represents a significant engineering achievement and an important moment in American infrastructure development, captured through the lens of renowned photographer A. Aubrey Bodine. The bridge connecting Maryland's eastern and western shores remains the largest continuous entirely-over-water steel structure in the world, spanning 4.35 miles from Sandy Point to Kent Island with the entire project measuring 7.727 miles including approach roads.

The scale of construction required approximately 6,500,000 man hours of work and 60,000 tons of steel, with work beginning on November 3, 1949 and the bridge opening on July 30, 1952. The $45,000,000 project was financed through tolls from this and other state bridges. The bridge's graceful, sweeping curve was designed to comply with regulations determined by the Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army, while also landing the structure on favorable terrain.

Bodine's photograph "Building the Bay Bridge (1950)" is part of a series documenting the bridge's construction, showcasing his distinctive approach to photography. In photographic circles worldwide, A. Aubrey Bodine was regarded as one of the finest pictorialists of the twentieth century, with his work exhibited in hundreds of prestigious shows and museums while winning numerous awards against top competition.

Bodine's career began in 1923 when he started covering stories for the Baltimore Sunday Sun, traveling throughout Maryland to create remarkable documentary pictures of various occupations and activities. What set his work apart was the artistic quality, design, and lighting effects that far exceeded typical newspaper photography standards. He studied art principles at the Maryland Institute College of Art, approaching photography as a creative discipline where camera and darkroom equipment served as tools similar to a painter's brush or sculptor's chisel.

His technical craftsmanship involved constant experimentation, with some pictures composed entirely in the camera viewfinder while others underwent extensive manipulation including dye work, intensifiers, pencil marking, scraping, and photographic cloud additions. Bodine justified these technical alterations by comparing his process to painting from a model, selecting features that suited his sense of mood, proportion and design. As he famously stated, he didn't take pictures - he made pictures.

The historical significance of Bodine's Bay Bridge photograph extends beyond documentary value to represent an important moment in both infrastructure development and photographic art. The bridge itself transformed transportation and commerce between Maryland's eastern and western shores, while Bodine's artistic approach elevated photojournalism to fine art. More than 6,000 photographs spanning Bodine's 47-year career are available for viewing on the website https://www.aaubreybodine.com, where the full text of his biography "A Legend In His Time" written by his editor and closest friend Harold A. Williams can also be found at https://www.aaubreybodine.com.