O. Winston Link was born December 16, 1914 in Brooklyn, NY, and originally went on to receive a civil engineering degree from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in 1937. Link worked for over forty years as a commercial photographer, producing photographs suited to his client's needs. Link's most famous project, the series of the Norfolk and Western Railway, was the result of Link's desire to document a part of United States' history that was quickly fading. Link's purpose was to photograph the end of the steam engine in such a way that the images would be a lasting tribute to this period. Unlike the street photography of the time which only used available light, Link's technique employed elaborate staging and synchronized flash on a large scale. He developed new forms of lighting equipment, rigging 43 flash bulbs to strike simultaneously in his effort to capture the locomotives in action. In addition, Link used a large-format camera as opposed to the popular 35mm.
Link has published two books of his work: Steam, Steel, and Stars, (1987) and The Last Steam Railroad in America (1995). His images are included in the collections of museums and galleries worldwide and is possible to own a piece of Link's history of the steam engine. O. Winston Link died on January 30th, 2001 in Katonah, New York.