In the beginning…there
was Bill Stockwell
This
name, sadly, is unfamiliar to most of the youthful photographers
of today. But before Monte Zucker, Rocky Gunn and Denis Regie
came a voice crying in the wilderness, “How do we see
this shimmering wedding? Through a joke book or through the
misty eyes of the bride.”
In
the late 60’s and 70’s Bill Stockwell was a name
as familiar as Kodak to the photographers of that time. He was
one of the true innovators of our industry. He conducted seminars
worldwide and his students were the most prestigious of their
day.
At
a time when wedding photography was statistical and static,
he introduced news-style shooting, selective focus, dramatic
lighting and a basic sensitivity to the emotional undercurrent
of the event. “We don’t photograph weddings the
way we photograph trucks”
He
called himself “the misty messiah” and preached
from his pulpit with the fervency of Mussolini. Monte Zucker
was one of his early students. Monte took the basic concept
of romance and added backgrounds and lighting. Monte still conducts
many seminars and programs and is, of course, an icon in our
business.
But
Bill Stockwell believed in keeping things simple and in capturing
the “emotional murmur” of the event without extraneous
equipment. “Bill Stockwell Jr. can shoot 50 saleable Casuals
while Monte is looking for a wall plug”. Bill and Monte
competed in a heavily touted battle in the boxing ring at Caesar’s
Palace in 1981. With Rocky Gunn as the referee. Truly he was
a showman the caliber of P.T. Barnum
