In the 1960s Bodine’s salon work wound down. His health was failing and he needed to finish his fourth book, "The Face of Virginia". In 1965 Bodine had a one-man show in Moscow that was the first exchange of one-man photography exhibits between the United States and the U.S.S.R. Bodine’s Soviet counterpart was Vladimir Shakhovskoi, the “dean” of Russian photographers. The National Press Photographers Association (N.P.P.A.) began with a 1945 conference of eighteen photographers from the major United States newspapers. Aubrey Bodine represented the Baltimore ""Sunpapers"". He worked closely with the NPPA’s first president, Joseph Costa, a ""New York Daily News"" photographer, in the forming of a national organization to promote respect and recognition for the profession of photojournalism. Costa said of Bodine: “I considered him certainly the finest print maker I have ever known and the greatest photographic pictorialist of his time-if not all-time greatest.” In 1948, the NPPA inaugurated its annual awards for photographic achievements. Bodine’s images competed with pictures of hard “spot” news. His photographs were published in a newspaper, but they were from a different genre that set him apart from the majority of NPPA members. He was a feature photographer working with the advantage of a public that was thrilled when Bodine arrived to take a picture. He had none of the daily pressures to produce timely "spot" news photos. His editors gave him flexibility with photo assignments. In 1953 Bodine was named a "Fellow of the National Press Photographers’ Association" in "recognition of his outstanding achievement as photographer, pictorialist and exhibitor in photographic salons throughout the world and for the attention and recognition which such success has brought to the profession of photojournalism." Bodine was first photographer to have a Fellowship in both the N.P.P.A. and the Photographic Society of America (P.S.A.). In 1957, Bodine was named "Newspaper-Magazine Photographer of the Year", a distinction created by the judges specifically for A. Aubrey Bodine. The NPPA April, 1957 newsletter elaborated on the new award: "Bodine had the highest point score in the whole competition. …however the judges felt a distinction had to be made between a photographer covering assignments for Sunday feature use like Bodine, and one covering general assignments—daily spot-news events."