Passing In The Night

Iaeger, West Virginia, August 2, 1956 

From Smithsonian.com a nice story on New York photographer O. Winston Link who spent five years in the late 1950s documenting the end of the steam-powered locomotive era in coal country.  At the local drive-in, Link approached a young couple on a date and asked if they would sit in his convertible for a staged shot.  Smithsonian.com describes Link's planning for the shot of what is a vanished time in America:

Link had already timed the Norfolk and Western Freight No. 78, whose locomotive was "the most beautiful engine ever built," in his book. He had set up 42 flashbulbs throughout the scene (plus one to highlight his car). After he talked Allen and Christian into indulging him, Link climbed a ladder to his tripod-mounted 4 x 5 and waited.

His timing was perfect—he wrote of being able to see only the locomotive's distant headlight coming down the tracks—but it wasn't enough. The explosion of light washed out what was on the movie screen at the moment; he had to print the image of the plane from a negative he'd made separately of that night's showing. The film, Battle Taxi, has been forgotten. But Link's picture holds up as a one-frame narrative of 20th-century transportation.