Eolake Stobblehouse
Long-long-longtime friend o' TOP Eolake Stobblehouse has died. A Dane who was born Frants Nielsen—"a character I vaguely remember," he said of that name—he died at his home in Manchester, England, of natural causes and apparently without pain or discomfort. "He was dead on the way to the bathroom," his sisters wrote, "no drama, but quietly they said." He had mentioned ongoing health problems but seldom complained or explained.
Eolake was an original. He had wide-ranging interests and a great devotion to spirituality and arts of all kinds. Adam at TidBITS wrote that Eolake was "a genuinely thoughtful and inquisitive soul who was always involved in some sort of personal creative expression." Can't say it better. He always struck me as a person of kindness, compassion, and a humane outlook who nevertheless had a core of sadness in his life; but that last is only my impression. He was an early internet entrepreneur and among the first to make his fortune in this then-new medium. He also was a loyal supporter of other internet endeavors he liked, which fortunately included The Online Photographer. He helped keep us alive for a while.
He also helped in many other ways. I'll tell you one little Eolake story.
Very early on, when I first started accepting ads, I had my ad spaces priced very cheaply, yet they had attracted almost zero interest. It seemed pretty obvious that my 'umble blog, like many of my endeavors, was going to fizzle. Hearing of this, Eolake sent me a little paperback book with an amateurish-looking cover—it was called The Trick to Money Is Having Some. To give you an idea of the kind of book it was, consider this from the blurb: "...money is merely a form of energy, and...the difference between having it and not having it is merely a small but subtle shift in consciousness." Pure Eolake; he loved that sort of soft new-agey talk. I emailed him to thank him, but noted that, first of all, the book had about the dumbest title of any book I had ever heard of in my life, so, "thanks but no thanks," because I knew he liked that kind of stuff but it was just not my cuppa.
He replied in gentle good humor; I don't think I ever once riled or tweaked Eolake, much less angered him. He calmly explained that if I would just read it and open up my heart to the Universe (or some such, I wouldn't know how to quote him exactly just from memory), good things would happen. Well, I was about to lose my house at the time, and the electric company was cutting off our power on a regular basis, and I thought, well, he's done this successfully, and I haven't, so why do I think I know so much more than he does? So I took his advice and read the book. And it was at least in parts as offbeat as I imagined it would be. But at the end I thought, I'm not so smart, so I'll just take the suggestions and do what it says. One of which was that I threw caution, not to mention rationality, to the winds, and increased the price of my ad spaces tenfold. This seemed crazy to me, but I figured I had little to lose, since I was only earning a pittance from them anyway.
To my complete amazement, there was an immediate clamoring for ads on the site. Within an astonishingly short time—on the order of a few weeks—I had sold more than I ever hoped for and was earning enough just from ads every month for me and my son to live on, if barely.
Eolake said, See?
Makes me laugh even now. Probably just coincidence, and yet....
Ads kept me going for a few years, and from then on, each source of income on the site tended to be replaced by a better one. Within a few years I went from having to check the dribs and drabs in my bank account carefully before charging anything at the grocery store, lest my card be declined, to having tens of thousands in my checking account and never having to give a thought to what any particular food item cost.
Perhaps Eolake merely died. But perhaps his soul is streaking along somewhere out in the Universe in a sparkling ball of light and warmth, and he's laughing, joyful to have shed this Earth and its troubles and embarked on the next phase of his spirit's journey. It's almost hard to see how it could be otherwise.
I'm still sad. I wish I had met him. I see that I did not even answer his last two emails, which makes me feel like a sh*t. His sites are still up. He is survived by his sisters Maj-Britt and Karin, who are in my thoughts. (If you know how to contact them, please send them a link to this post.) Farewell, Eolake, and thanks.
Mike
(Thanks to Christian Dönges, Bahi Para, Adam Engst, and several others)
Book of Interest:
Hank O'Neal, Ed., A Vision Shared: A Portrait of America 1935–1943 (Steidl, 2019). The reissue of the best overall survey of the work of the FSA photographers of the 1930s. Every public and school library should have a copy, for one thing. Thanks to Andy Moursund for turning me on to this book many years ago. Originally published in 1976 by St. Martin's Press.
The book link above is a portal to Amazon.
Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
Steve Rosenblum: "What very sad news."
darlene: "May peace be with his loved ones. My heart is heavy for you and his friends."
Kenneth Tanaka: "Very sorry to learn of the loss of someone quite familiar here. My condolences to his family and close friends. It is a unique phenomenon of our age that we feel rather close loss for people we’ve come to know but have never met in-person."
I'm sorry to hear of his death. I exchanged emails once with him. It didn't come from him but I got the same advice for selling my photographs but I have to say it had the opposite effect when I tried it. Instead of increasing my sales, they came to a screeching halt.
Posted by: James Bullard | Thursday, 21 April 2022 at 06:09 PM
May his memory be a blessing.
What camera is that in the first self-portrait?
Posted by: Ben Rosengart | Thursday, 21 April 2022 at 06:23 PM
Another sad loss for our community, both here and more broadly. The world is in need of all the kindness and compassion it can get.
Posted by: Derek | Thursday, 21 April 2022 at 07:32 PM
What very sad news.
Posted by: Steve Rosenblum | Thursday, 21 April 2022 at 08:37 PM
Thank you for this article and the links.
@ Ben Rosengart : I think the camera is a Fuji X10, not to mess up with XT10. I had an X20 some years ago, great little pocketable camera with a bright optical (!) viewfinder, 2/3 inch sensor, good fixed zoom lens, crop factor 3,9. Instead of enhancing the OVF system they replaced it by an EVF in the X30. Bigger battery required, bulkier body and finally the end of this series sadly. Regards,
Helmut the Austrian.
Posted by: Helmut | Friday, 22 April 2022 at 02:32 AM
Sad news, he will be missed.
@ Ben Rosengart. It’s a Fuji X10
Posted by: Richard Parkin | Friday, 22 April 2022 at 06:42 AM
The camera Eolake is holding is a Fujifilm X10. It had a 2/3 sensor and a 28-112mm equivalent lens.
Posted by: Gordon Lewis | Friday, 22 April 2022 at 08:42 AM
Very sad news, and condolences to his sisters/family. But thanks Michael for letting us know, and I've linked back to here from my blog over at https://wolfgang.lonien.de/2022/04/rest-in-peace-eolake/
Posted by: Wolfgang Lonien | Friday, 22 April 2022 at 08:51 AM
So sorry to hear of his passing.
Posted by: Dave Karp | Friday, 22 April 2022 at 10:54 AM
Very sad news for sure. I enjoyed his many insightful comments over the years. I can only imagine what a great friend he was to all who knew him well. A loss for all of us that visit and enjoy TOP.
Posted by: Rob Griffin | Friday, 22 April 2022 at 02:34 PM
I always thought "what a fascinating name" whenever I saw a comment from Eolake on the site. I think I'm even more pleased to know that he chose it for himself.
I would love to know the backstory on that name. Likely, I never will. As Wesley told Inigo Montoya, "Get used to disappointment".
[Walker Percy, from Lost in the Cosmos: "As John Cheever said, the main emotion of the adult Northeastern American who has had all the advantages of wealth, education, and culture is disappointment." (I don't think anyone's ever found the Cheever source of this.) --Mike]
Posted by: Severian | Saturday, 23 April 2022 at 10:38 AM
I remember him on a blog post somewhere (here, maybe?) saying “who could antagonize a photographer with a pink camera?”
I never met him in real life, only online, but sure he’ll be missed.
Posted by: Gaspar Heurtley | Saturday, 23 April 2022 at 08:33 PM
I had only known Eolake for the past two years via his Facebook friend request, but enjoyed our steady online conversations hence. He was one of the few people that made dealing with Facebook worthwhile. I'll miss his insights and good company.
Posted by: Michael Elenko | Monday, 25 April 2022 at 05:06 PM
From the old Usenet days, I've always worried when the sobject (or title) of a post has just the name of someone. Yep, still a bad sign. Very sorry to hear this.
My goodness, there isn't a Wikipedia page for him. I don't know enough to (track down the sources to) write one, but it seems like he's "notable" enough.
Posted by: David Dyer-Bennet | Wednesday, 27 April 2022 at 01:35 AM
I exchanged a few emails with Eolake; sounded like a nice fella. RIP, Mr. S.
Posted by: Roger Bradbury | Thursday, 28 April 2022 at 04:13 PM