O. Winston Link

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).

Ogle Winston Link[1] (December 16, 1914 – January 30, 2001), known commonly as O. Winston Link, was an American photographer. He is best known for his black and white photography and sound recordings of the last days of steam locomotive railroading in the United States in the 1950s and early 1960s. A commercial photographer, Winston Link helped establish rail photography as a hobby. His night photography was also pioneering, and produced several very well known examples, including "Hotshot Eastbound," a photograph with a steam train passing a drive-in movie theater, and "Hawksbill Creek Swimming Pool, Luray, Virginia" with a train passing children swimming near a bridge.[2]

Contents

[edit] Early life

Link and his siblings, Eleanor and Albert Jr., spent their childhood in Brooklyn, New York, where they lived with their parents Albert Sr. and Anne. Albert Link worked in the New York City Public School system, where he taught woodworking. Albert encouraged his children with this and other skills, and first introduced Winston to photography.

Link's early photography was created with a borrowed medium format Autographic Kodak camera. By the time he was in high school he had built his own photographic enlarger. [3]

After completing high school, Link attended the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, receiving a degree in civil engineering. Before his graduation in 1937, Link gave a speech at banquet for the institute's newspaper, where he served as photo editor. An executive with Carl Byoir's public relations firm who was present was much impressed with Link's manner and speaking ability, and offered him a job as a photographer.[4]

[edit] Career

Link worked for Carl Byoir and Associates for five years, learning his trade on the job. He adapted to the technique of making posed photographs looking candid, as well as creatively emphasizing a point. Some of Link's photographs from this time included an image of a man aiming a gun at a pig wearing a bulletproof vest, and one eventually known as "What Is This Girl Selling?" or "Girl on Ice," which was widely published in the United States and later featured in Life as a "classic publicity picture." According to Thomas Garver, once assistant to Link, Link's employ at Byoir's firm "clearly defined a point of view and developed working methods that were to shape his entire career."[5]

With the war consuming much of the rest world and soon to reach the United States, and unable to join the military due to mumps-induced hearing loss, Link left Byoir's employ in 1942 to work for the Airborne Instruments Laboratory, part of Columbia University. Drawing on both his university degree and professional photographic experience, Link worked at the laboratory as both project engineer and photographer. At the time, the laboratory was researching a device for low-flying airplanes to detect submarines underwater. Link's main responsibity was photographically documenting the project for the United States' government.[6]

In 1945, with the end of the war, Link's employment at the Airborne Instruments Laboratory also ended. Byoir invited Link back, but Link instead opened his own studio in 1946; his clients included Goodrich, Alcoa, Texaco, and Ethyl.[7]

[edit] Rail photography

The photographs are now widely known. "Hotshot Eastbound" — a night scene of a steam locomotive passing adjacent to a drive-in movie theater, with cars parked inside and an airplane on the screen — was duplicated in "Dumbbell Indemnity", an episode of The Simpsons.[8]

[edit] Later life

In 1996, Link's second wife, Conchita, was arrested for (and later convicted of) stealing a collection of Link's photographs, after she attempted to sell them, claiming that Link had Alzheimer's disease and that she had power of attorney. She served six years in prison. After being released, she again attempted to sell some of Link's works that she had stolen, this time using the internet auction site eBay. She received a three year sentence. [9] Conchita was also accused of imprisoning her husband.[10]. However, this allegation is disputed by some, and it never led to any criminal charges against Conchita.

Link made a cameo appearance as a steam locomotive engineer in the 1999 film October Sky.

[edit] Museum

The rail photography of Winston Link is featured at the O. Winston Link Museum in Roanoke, Virginia which opened in January, 2004. The museum is housed in the former passenger station of the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W), the last Class I railroad to convert from steam motive power in 1960. Link's work in the late 1950s was encouraged and facilitated by N&W officials, whose company had long built its own locomotives in the Roanoke Shops and had refined use of steam locomotives in earning it reputation for "precision transportation."

Next to this museum in Roanoke is the Virginia Museum of Transportation, which includes a special pavilion constructed to house the static display of the Norfolk & Western J-611 and A-1218 steam locomotives which were operated in excursion service in the 1980s and early 1990s.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Link was named after two of his maternal ancestors: the twentieth Speaker of the United States House of Representatives John Winston Jones and Pennsylvanian Representative Alexander Ogle. Last Railroad p. 132.
  2. ^ O. Winston Link Museum website biography, 1955-8. Accessed 12 June 2006
  3. ^ Last Railroad pp. 132–3; Museum p. 3
  4. ^ Last Railroad p. 136.
  5. ^ Last Railroad pp. 136-9; Museum p. 4.
  6. ^ Museum p. 5; Last Railroad p. 140.
  7. ^ Last Railroad p. 142.
  8. ^ Visual comparison between "Hotshot Eastbound" and The Simpsons scene
  9. ^ "Ex-Wife's 2nd Trial". 6 May 2004. The Hook. Accessed 19 June 2006.
  10. ^ "Hell mates: Sad tale of Winston and Conchita"

[edit] References

[edit] External link

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../o/2E/_/O._Winston_Link_dd9e.html"