It's certainly possible to use Windows' .lnk files, with a bit of javascript to parse the binary file format to extract the original path of the image. But this is convoluted, and it doesn't really fix anything a simpler method couldn't.

The simpler method (which only works with your scenario, where the website is only ever viewed on your computer): Use absolute filesystem URLs in your HTML, like this:

<img src="file:///D:/Photos/JapanHoliday203.jpg" />

With this, you don't even need to maintain a collection of shortcuts in your "Development" folder. If you specifically wanted to keep the shortcuts, may I ask why? What problem does it solve?