Check out PhotographyBLOG’s new site of the current best digital cameras (click here). If you’re ever asked (or wondered) what the current best digicams are, this is a good place to check out what the reviewers liked. the prices are in british-pounds, but the dollar equivalents are usually given. this will be helpful to a lot of Us. we’ll add this link to our favorite links (below), so you can find it next time you need to answer the question of what’s good out there.
O. Winston Link
One of many of my favorite photographers is O.Winston Link. He worked from the late 30’s through the early 1980’s and is best known for his incredible B&W photos of Steam Locomotives.

A Civil Engineer by training (and a member of Tau Beta Pi), he never got around to being an Engineer. As he was leaving school, near the end of the great depression, he was offered a job in a marketing firm for which his developing photographic skills were a good fit. It was while he was on assignment that he observed and realized that the days of the great steam locomotives were numbered, soon to be replaced by diesel locomotives.

His engineering skills allowed him to make some incredible photographs of the locomotives, mainly at night so he could manipulate the lighting to his liking (not being able to move the sun or the train-tracks during the day).

He used a Graphic-View camera, and of course, keeping with then current state-of-the-art, flashbulbs.

He made fixtures of up to 30 flashbulbs that could be synchronized with other fixtures, and multiple cameras to take pictures where he would not only light up a behemoth locomotive, but a large part of the town as well.

He carried miles of electrical wire in a trailer which he towed behind his car. This wire was used to connect all the flashbulb fixtures and cameras, and his car was also a prop in some of his pictures. It would take him, at a minimum, hours to set up a shot, with some shots taking 6-days to set-up.

His pictures not only featured the trains and surrounding artifacts, but usually people as well. He knew, from his job as a publicity-photographer, that people always made the shot more interesting to a wider audience. You can literally feel the locomotives quaking the ground as they pass by in his photographs. In one photograph, taken in the living room of a house near the tracks, you’re just waiting for things to start falling off the walls as the locomotive passes by just outside the window.
He received permission from many a railroad to take photos of their steam locomotives, but he funded most of the locomotive pictures on his own, from monies made in his normal freelance photography.

His personal life is as interesting as his photographs. from a father who taught him many of the skills he used to take these awesome photographs, to wives who wanted to steal all his negatives and sell them on their own.

The best way to enjoy his photography is to either see it in a museum, or better still, find some of the great books on his work. 2 books that showcase his life and his work are “Steam, Steel, and Stars” and “The Last Steam Railroad in America“.

The internet doesn’t have much to show on his stuff (when you learn about his trials and tribulations you’ll know why) and what is there, doesn’t do his photographs justice.

If you love either photography or trains (or better still, both) check out O.Winston Link. He was, and will always be, a photographer’s-photographer.

CENTURY

Another great photographic reference is a book by phaidon called CENTURY. It describes itself as “One Hundred Years of Human Progress,Regression, Suffering, and Hope” and is an attempt to outline the history of the 20th century as the camera has seen it.

It is 1100-pages filled with great photography of world events. It starts in the late 1800’s with a photograph by Atget, the great French photographer and takes you through history through the fall of Russia and Columbine. Every page and photograph is compelling.

It is a monumental book of incredible proportions and the selection of photos which have been included are another way to appreciate and enjoy incredibly great photography.

Bargain Books

Now you may be asking yourself why I mention these 2 books in the same article, and that would bring us to our 3rd topic.

If you haven’t done so already, if you like to buy books and magazines, you need to join the Border’s book-club. it’s free to join, and they e-mail you some fantastic coupons. They give you 10% off, and I’ve had coupons for 30% off. I bought both of the above books from thier bargain bin and received an additional discount with my e-mailed promotions.

I got the Phaidon book (CENTURY) for less than $15.00 after discount (retail is around $60) and the O.Winston Link book (The last Steam Railroad in America) I got my first one for a little above $10.00 (list is $22.98) and a second copy I could actully read and not worry about getting dirty, for less than $7.00!

It’s pretty hard to argue about savings like that, especially when they’re free.

So check out O.Winston Link, CENTURY (and all of Phaidon’s books) and make sure to check out the Border’s club.