Smoke, Steam & Light

There is a public vote for 'Picture of the Year', and for 16 of the past 17 years the winner of this award has been John Austin. His work, always of steam trains portrayed with technical excellence, is distinctive for its intense passion and atmosphere, with a combination of eye-catching light (often lots of steam and sparks, and plenty of night scenes), spectacular landscape (sometimes the train is set quite small in the scenery) and turbulent weather (lots of storms and, with the coastal settings in which he specializes, wild seas).  His work has become highly sought-after as well as valuable.  This book gathers together his 100 best pictures along with his biography.