Stockland Martel

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Producer Loni Weholt, who died on April 25 at the age of 50 after battling cancer, was a beloved member of the photo community and of the Stockland Martel family. As people continue to post messages at the Facebook page Give It Up for Loni, a number of us who had worked with her wanted to take a moment to share a few of their memories of this special woman…

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Loni Weholt (second from right) and Lauren Greenfield (far left) at a wrap party Loni threw for an ad campaign Lauren shot in Las Vegas in late 2008.

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“Her final 50th birthday event was profound. In the last days of her life, she celebrated and said her goodbyes to a large group of friends in San Francisco. I was blessed to be there that evening with Lauren Greenfield. And Loni DANCED in her wheelchair, determined to have the same LIFE IN THE MOMENT spirit that she always had. We could have cried or danced, and Loni chose to have us all dance!” —Bill Stockland

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“Loni worked with me when I photographed the lady on the diving board in ’97.  She was with me in Cuba when I photographed the naked women. She has been with me ever since on most projects on the West Coast. We’ve danced, cried and shopped together. She cared so much about me and my work that it hurts so much knowing I can’t pick up the phone and hear her laughing.” —Nadav Kander

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“I didn’t know Loni before working with her last summer. On our first face-to-face meeting away from the agency and client, our first time to actually say hi to each other over a glass of wine, Loni broke the news that she had just found out that she had been diagnosed with a rare and deadly cancer. She knew she had six months to live.

There was this pause.

We just looked at each other, neither of us sure what to make of it. I think she smiled and had a tear in her eye all at the same time. I took a deep breath and decided that it was going to be OK. I said, ‘Look, we are all going to die at some point. You don’t have any regrets, do you? You’ve never held back…?’ It sounds cold now, but it felt somehow calming at the time.

I think I felt scared, shocked, upset, choked up, bewildered, and the only sense i could make of the whole thing was to boil it down to its basics: ‘This woman that I hardly know is going to die. What does this mean?’ Right there at that moment, looking into the eyes of a healthy, full-of-energy, attractive woman, it felt like an academic question. She wasn’t dying in front of me. What is life?

Well, you live, and then you die. You try and do the right thing when you are alive, but you have to accept that you will die at some point. And somehow I think for both of  us, that simple realization took the enormity of the situation away and made it manageable. I will never forget that moment.

Needless to say, Loni did an amazing job of producing the shoot. Everything went very smoothly, and we said goodbye.

I never saw her again.” —John Midgley

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“Loni Weholt was a force of nature. She lit up every room she entered with her infectious enthusiasm, enveloping support, and creative spirit. She was a dear friend and a colleague, and someone upon whom I relied again and again. Her generosity and love for her friends was a parting gift that I don’t think any of us who attended her 50th birthday party will ever forget. She was an inspiration to many and set the bar high for how to live life.

This…

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Loni on the bar at Coyote Ugly in New York, during a location scout with Lauren.

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…is a visual memory from our last shoot together…” —Lauren Greenfield
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Loni, we will miss you. —Stockland Martel

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