I attended the David Stoecklein seminar last weekend in Dallas, Texas, and
thought I might share some of Stoecklein's comments with the list. For those
of you unfamiliar with Stoecklein, he has produced a series of books on the
American West like the Idaho Cowboy, Montana Cowboy, and Texas Cowboy.He also
does advertising work for Jeep, Chevrolet, Coke, and Marlboro. I've been a fan
of Stoecklein's for years and having gone to college in West Texas, I am
very familiar with some of the ranches he shot for the Texas Cowboy book.
Stoecklein's exposure tip was pretty straight forward; use the settings on the
inside of Kodak's and Fuji's film boxes! He opens up for back lit scenes and
stops down for silhouettes. He works around a base shutter speed of 1/500 for
broad daylight scenes. OK. He uses the 17-35, 28-70, and 70-200 F2.8 Canon
zooms
and also the 300 F2.8 and the 400 f2.8. His favorite lens is the 400f2.8.
When ask why he did not use the 100-400 zoom in place of the 400 F2.8 since
many of his exposures were shot at f5.6 or 6.3, Stoecklein's response was
"feel
or look". To quote as best I can, " I get a different "feel" with the 400
F2.8 compared to the zoom. Even if both are shot at F6.3 the "look" is
different". It took about 1/2 hour before somebody ask Stoecklein The
Question. When
he responded that he shoots 100% film and almost all 35mm, the crowd was
stunned into silence. One seminar participant apparantly could not believe his
ears and took Stoecklein to task during one of the breaks about his continued
use of film. Stoecklein's reasons for film use was: 1. Easy to edit. 2. Feel
or
look. He uses E100VS Kodak film almost exclusively. Watching Stoecklein work
the Mac during the presentation- and the numerous computer glitches during
the slide shows- I got the inpression the Stoecklein is not that comfortable
with computors. He said several times during breaks that the art of
photography and preserving on film the American West is what interests him.
It's been
years since I attended a seminar like this. Seeing the photographer's images
and hearing him discuss how and why the image was made was alot of fun.
Stoecklein answered every question with refreshing candor and honesty. There
was
even a question from a participant about the morality of shooting for
Marlboro.
After hearing that question, I was sure at least one other list member
attended the show.
Gary Faulkenberry
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