Link had a lifelong love of tools, cameras and trains. He recognized there was one great problem in shooting photos of locomotives – lighting. He once said, “You can’t move the sun, and you can’t move the tracks, so you have to do something else to better light the engines.” Link went on to custom build his own flash equipment required for his large-scale railroad photos, which he preferred to shoot at night. According to a New York Times article additional fame came years after having not exhibited his work. He became involved in a divorce battle with his second wife in 1996 that resulted in the conviction of Mrs. Link for stealing 1,400 of Mr. Link’s prints, which were worth $1.6 million. After serving five years in prison she was arrested two years later as she tried to sell the stolen prints, which were returned to the O. Winston Link Trust. She returned to prison. A museum dedicated to his work opened in Roanoke, Virginia, in 2004.
