BY KAREN BOSSICK
David Stoecklein shot everything from “The Patriot” heartthrob Mel Gibson to General Motors trucks, Jeeps and Coca-Cola.
But the Ketchum photographer’s real stock in trade was as a modern-day counterpart of Western painter Charlie Russell, training his trusty Nikon and Canon cameras on the remnants of the Old West.
Stoecklein—the most recognized western photographers of our time-- produced 55 coffee table-type books documenting a way of life that was fast fading before his eyes.
They included “The American Quarter Horse,” “Dude Ranches of the American West,” “Horse Doctors” and “Cowboy Ethics,” a book that reflected the code of the West that Stoecklein lived by.
He sold more than a million books featuring his work, including more than a quarter million copies of his first Western coffee table book, “Idaho Cowboy,” a 1991 tome full of action-packed images.
And he sold more than 1.5 million calendars and datebooks and thousands more prints. Locals have even spotted his iconic posters of American Indians in department store windows in Germany.
Stoecklein died in November. An exhibit of his iconic photography of the American West is being displayed at The Community Library in Ketchum through March 15.
“His sweeping images of Idaho’s high country, as well as his close-ups of cowboys working the land, provide an opportunity for us to think about how we imagine the landscape we inhabit,” said Jenny Emery Davidson, the library’s executive director.
Stoecklein got cowboys in his blood some 45 years ago after moving to Idaho from Pennsylvania by way of California and Utah to photograph skiers.
“I had no idea what you did or how you made money. I just wanted to take photos and make a living at it,” said Stoecklein, who eventually got assignments from magazines and companies like L.L. Bean, Reebok, Budweiser, Eddie Bauer, Marlboro and Wrangler.
Stoecklein’s expansive office bordering Highway 75 in north Ketchum was cluttered with harnesses, steer horns, lariats and a few dozen western books, including “The Dalton Gang Story,’’ “The Mustangs,” “The Cowboy Encyclopedia,” “Croutons in a Cow Pie’’ and “The Texas Cowboys,” which he once said was his most successful book.
He read hundreds of Western books, he said, to know as much as he could about the cowboy way in an attempt to make his shoots reflect the real cowboy.
And that research and passion came through in photographs of buckaroos saddling up in dimly lit wooden stalls in places like Mackay where he had a ranch.
He built a chuckwagon to create scenes of Western gear from the 1800s for his book “Cowboy Gear.”
“The Cowboy Boot” portrays everything from rodeo legend Ty Murray’s custom boots memorializing his World Rodeo Championships to Stoecklein’s own collection of boots from Leddys for dress to Ariats for everyday use in the dusty horse corrals in which he did so many of his shoots.
And his 237-page “Cowgirls” depicted cowgirls in a variety of poses—in a tub, red boots by the side … riding through the sagebrush prairie, hair flying in the wind. And, of course, sporting the latest cowgirl fashion on the runway of the corral—from Carhartt pants and pearls to calico shirts and leather chaps.
The book included Hailey’s Christine Thornton, who got her Shetland pony Stubby at the age of 5 after her car dealer father accepted the pony in partial payment for a car. Also, Ketchum’s Hillary Mayberry and Kathy Seal; Bellevue’s Liz Batcha and Hailey’s Selbi Board.
“Cowgirls are an individual breed,’’ Stoecklein said at the time he published the book. “They’re competitive. They can handle a horse as well as and sometimes better than a man. They’re beautiful and graceful yet at the same time they’re not afraid to get their hands dirty or bloody or get up early on a cold wet morning. They’re women who just roll their eyes when another $4 can of Copenhagen goes through the wash.”
Stoecklein noted that there was “a heck of a lot of barrel racers in Texas.” But, he added, they were all about the big hair and painted nail look.
“The girls up here ride with their men and do the same work as a man.”
Stoecklein’s books are composed not just of cute pictures of freckled dogs or wicker rockers on the front porches of dude ranches. Nor are they simply an exercise in how many creative ways you can think of to show off cowboy boots, Western outhouses or even Western fences.
They document the history of all things cowboy in written form. Like how the cowboy boot evolved from the Tartars and the Mongols. Or how American quarters horses, prized for their ability to run short distances at high speed, were named for the quarter-mile races they competed in Colonial Virginia and North Carolina.
Stoecklein went to Italy to photograph quarter horses in Tuscany for “The American Quarter Horse,” in addition to shooting ranch horses in Canada and 17 states.
He traveled to veterinary clinics, hospitals and school from Florida to California for his “Horse Doctors” book. And he laid down his bunk roll at 27 dude ranches, including Idaho’s Twin Peak ranch near Salmon and Hidden Creek ranch near Harrison.
As romantic it sounds—this riding the range in search of the next great wild mustang shot--Stoecklein once conceded that spending 200 days on the road was grueling. The hotel and motel rooms got uglier with every passing year since they took him away from his wife and three sons.
But he had a dream that a hundred years from now someone will say: “Look at David Stoecklein if you want to know what the West was like in the 1970s, ‘80s, ‘90s, the turn of the century.”
“A cowboy’s life is the most unique lifestyle in the United States, and one that is romanticized and used by a lot of people all over the world to sell products,” he said. “A cowboy is not just a cowboy--he’s a symbol of America. There have been people before me who have photographed the West and there will be people afterwards. But I’d really like to be known as the one who did it the best.”
DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THE THE DAVID R. STOECKLEIN MEMORIAL AND EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION?
David Stoeklein’s family—Mary, Drew Taylor and Colby—established the charitable not-for-profit organization to preserve and document the Western American way of live, as it once was and still is today, through photography and philanthropy. It was organized for literary and educational purposes to promote Western life through exhibits of Western art, artifacts and photography, grants, scholarships, publications and educational programs. For more information, visit drsfoundation.org or call 208-726-5191.