Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008 - (Page 54)

O. WINSTON LINK O. Winston Link, a Brooklyn native, is best known for his breathtaking black and white images of the Norfolk & Western Railway taken during the last days of steam locomotives from 1955 to 1960. Unlike other railroad photographers who focused solely on the machinery, Link included Americans along the railway, the “regular people,” in his photos. In many of his more memorable images, it is these people and their everyday activities which stand out, not the locomotive, which appears almost as an afterthought. By the time Link began his documentation of the Norfolk & Western in 1955, he was already an established commercial photographer with a client list including Amoco, United Gas, U.S. Steel, Volkswagen, Shell Oil, Texaco, Popular Science, Willys Overland, and Goodyear. But eighteen years earlier, in 1937, he was fresh out of The Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn with a degree in Civil Engineering and looking for a job, not the easiest prospect in depression-era America. “I have a good lead for a job as a photographer for the summer,” Link wrote to a friend in June 1937. “Will start work in a couple of weeks I think.” Shortly thereafter, Link was hired as a photographer for a public relations firm — a job he was grateful to land when so many were out of work. In a letter to a Mr. Brierley on June 30, Link wrote: “Dear Mr. Brierley, Thanks to you for my position with Carl Byoir and Associates. I am getting along swell with Mr. George Hammond, my director and chief critic.” “I find the work extremely interesting since it deals with the type of photography I like best. The job has nothing to do with engineering. Come to think of it, O. Winston Link became best one of the secretaries asked me known for his nostalgic what manganese did to steel and photographs of steam trains within whether or not the ore was smelted the American landscape, including or just smelled. Good I had my Hot Shot, Eastbound, at the Ieager Drive-In, West Virginia, 1956. Materials of Construction book handy.” Unknowingly, Link was about to be part of an image improvement operation. Byoir, a Manhattan based P.R. firm, had taken on Louisiana as a client in hopes of altering the state’s negative image acquired during Governor Huey Long’s suzerainty. With his Graflex camera and Crown Tripod No. 1 tripod in hand, the young photographer was off to Louisiana in the summer of 1937. Early Port Sulfur Country, August 10, 1941 by Winston Conway Link 54 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES\Winter 2008-09

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008 Contents Friends Editor's Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Prospect.1 New Orleans The Historic New Orleans Collection The Enduring Performance of Michael P. Smith Jazz Notes Louisiana Foodways Birds of a Feather: Windfowl Carvings in Southeast Louisiana Louisiana Association of Museums Louisiana Architecture O. Winston Link in Louisiana The Ogden Museum of Southern Art The Colfax Massacre Louisiana State Museum Unlocking the History of Greek Key Architecture Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008

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