Shreve Stockton was a disillusioned, 20-something photographer living in New York City when she drove through Wyoming on her first cross-country trip a few years ago. She would say later that as soon as she saw the red mountains, expansive valleys and open air, she felt a visceral need to come back. Ever the free-spirit, she packed all of her things a few months later and moved 2,000 miles to the Wyoming countryside, where she began living in a cabin and dating a cowboy.
A few months later, her boyfriend brought home a baby coyote, covered in giant, translucent fleas. He’d been orphaned after his parents were shot for killing sheep. After a few days of deliberation, Stockton decided to let the coyote stay in her home, name it Charlie, and help “raise” him.
The Daily Coyote is Stockton’s photo blog of pictures she’s taken of Charlie growing up: playing gently with her tomcat, tussling with her pet hound, chewing on his own plush toys. (Yes, apparently, “domesticated” coyotes like plush toys.) Last year, she got a book deal with Simon & Schuster mainly because the site pulls in 1 million hits per month. But somewhere after that (the book came out last year), Stockton began charging people to “subscribe” to her once-free ”Daily Coyote” email newsletter, which includes a daily photo of Charlie doing something adorable.
This caused her original site to turn into something of a wasteland. She no longer updates it regularly; right now there are just a few photos up, and the most recent ones are from May. Of course, they’re striking — in one, Charlie lies on his belly as Stockton’s hound, then a puppy, chews playfully on his leg; another shows Charlie staring over his shoulder into the dry Wyoming wilderness — but there just aren’t enough of them.
And aside from Stockton’s occassional attempts to engage her non-subscribers with caption contests for the free photos (a recent competition resulted in a whopping 356 comments), there just isn’t much there for the non-paying reader. I wasn’t familiar with Stockton until I read her book, and when I went to the site afterwards, it was a huge let-down. Unless, of course, that is the point: Perhaps Stockton has stripped her site bare on purpose to make people pay for the good stuff. (Subscriptions start at $5/month.) Even then, I don’t think a couple more photos would break the bank.
