Hotshot Eastbound, Iaeger, West Virginia - O. Winston Link (1956)O. Winston Link (1914 - 2001) was a pioneering American photographer, specialising in railways and night photography. There are several excellent biographies of his life and work, so I will focus on the image above.
The focal point of this image is the young couple in the car at the drive-in movie theatre - the epitomy of 1950's America. There is a sense of modern style, from the cars to the jet aircraft displayed on the screen. And yet running across the top of the frame is the dominant steam engine and a trail of smoke. I love this image for its symbolism of transition - 19th century technology together with "hip" modernity.
On a technical level, the image is very impressive as well. Winston Link did not have the benefit of using ISO 6000 film - the fastest he could have obtained would have been somewhere around the 400 mark at best. Floodlighting the area would have destroyed the ambience of the shot and would have been virtually impossible anyway. Instead, he composed this shot using a series of linked flash bulbs scattered around and throughout the scene. It is a remarkable feat of photographic skill, considering the limits of flash at the time. The bulbs could only be used once, and each bulb in Winston Link's sequence was dependent on the previous one igniting successfully for itself to fire at the correct time. These days, such a sequence would be simple with radio-controlled flash units - but back then, Winston Link was out on his own, having to hand-make much of his equipment. If he missed the moment, he had no choice but to replace each of the flash bulbs, recompose the image and wait for the next train.
Link's images did not find popular success until comparatively late in his life, but he is now regarded as an important cultural photographer in the United States. His works are well worth browsing.
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