Cut straight from the fluorescent 1980s history books and left to right, Jon Willie, an unknown skier, Joey Cordreau, Gretchen Palmer and Bill Campbell strike a pose and etch their goggle tans on Mount Baldy. properly. “He totally broke through a lot of barriers, as far as that goes,” Cordeau says. Stoecklein also directed his photographs with clear vision, while other photographers would post up and give the skiers free reign. “He knew what would sell and he’d go out and get it,” Cordeau says. Sometimes that meant building features to blast through and gap over, or finding a specific line Stoecklein knew would shoot well. When Stoecklein died in 2014 from cancer, he left behind an incomprehensibly large body of work. Today, his son and photographer Drew Stoecklein manages the portfolio—over one million images, thousands of signed prints, 28 published books, calendars and countless advertisement campaigns. Despite his career’s origins, the spirit of his work is not defined by ski maga-zine covers—in fact it’s hard to find any of his ski images at all. A quick search of the Stoecklein lineage will pull up shot after shot of mustangs, cattle and cowboys. While the mountains once led Stoecklein to the American West, it was the early pioneers of the land—and particularly their struggle to survive during the region’s rapid evolution—that became his life’s work. David Stoecklein moved West for the skiing, but eventually fell in love with action off the slopes, gravitat-ing towards the simple stoicism of life in the American West. David Stoecklein Gallerie 083
The Ski Journal Volume 16, Issue 4: Page 83
