Curated News
By: NewsRamp Editorial Staff
August 21, 2025
A. Aubrey Bodine's 1958 Farm Museum Photo Captures Historic Wagon Driving
TLDR
- A. Aubrey Bodine's award-winning photography techniques offer artists a competitive edge through innovative darkroom manipulations and creative composition.
- Bodine methodically composed photographs using viewfinder framing, negative alterations with dyes and scraping, and photographic cloud additions to achieve artistic effects.
- Bodine's documentary work preserves Maryland's occupational history and cultural heritage, making the past accessible through his artistic photographic legacy.
- Elmer Lapp drove Conestoga wagons from atop the wheel horse using a single jerk line rein, unlike prairie schooner drivers who rode inside.
Impact - Why it Matters
This news matters because it preserves and highlights the work of a photographic master whose innovative techniques helped elevate photography to an art form. Bodine's documentation of historical practices, like the Conestoga wagon driving method, provides invaluable cultural and historical records that might otherwise be lost. For photography enthusiasts and historians, his approach of "making" rather than "taking" pictures demonstrates the creative potential of photographic manipulation long before digital editing. The accessibility of his extensive archive through www.aaubreybodine.com ensures that future generations can study and appreciate both his artistic vision and the historical moments he captured, bridging the gap between documentary photography and fine art.
Summary
The Pennsylvania Farm Museum photograph from 1958 captures Elmer Lapp demonstrating the unique driving technique of a Conestoga wagon, where the driver rode astride the wheel horse rather than inside the wagon, controlling the entire team with a single "jerk" line. This remarkable documentary image was created by A. Aubrey Bodine, who was regarded as one of the finest pictorialists of the twentieth century, with his work exhibited in prestigious shows and museums worldwide.
Bodine's photographic career began in 1923 with the Baltimore Sunday Sun, where he traveled throughout Maryland creating exceptional documentary pictures that combined artistic design and lighting effects far beyond typical newspaper standards. He believed photography could be a creative discipline, studying art principles at the Maryland Institute College of Art and treating his camera and darkroom equipment as tools similar to a painter's brush or sculptor's chisel. His craftsmanship involved extensive experimentation, including composing images in the viewfinder, working on negatives with dyes and intensifiers, and adding clouds photographically to achieve his artistic vision.
More than 6,000 photographs spanning Bodine's 47-year career are available for viewing and ordering as reprints and note cards through the website www.aaubreybodine.com, where visitors can also find the full biography "A Legend In His Time" written by his editor and closest friend Harold A. Williams. The website serves as the primary resource for accessing Bodine's extensive photographic legacy and learning more about this influential artist who consistently won top honors in national and international salon competitions.
Source Statement
This curated news summary relied on content disributed by citybiz. Read the original source here, A. Aubrey Bodine's 1958 Farm Museum Photo Captures Historic Wagon Driving
