Digital BW, The Print

On Friday, August 20, 2004, at 07:33 PM, Clayton Jones wrote:

> Hello James,
>
> >I lived in San Diego for many years, and studied photography at
> >Grossmont with Suda House, and learned a lot from Jim Noel,
> >David Wing and Gene Nocon-
>
> Amazing you should mention David Wing.  Just today I received his
> "Death Valley" book.  I had not heard of him before, but I saw the
> book on the PhotoEye web site last week and decided to take a chance
> on it - boy am I glad I did.  It's teriffic.  Can you share some
> thoughts, information, anecdotes about him?  There is no technical
> info in the book, but it looks like large format platinum.
>
> It is some of the most sensitive landscape work I've seen, and reminds
> me somewhat of Laura Gilpin's photos, another favorite of mine.  The
> book jacket remarks said he spent 100 winter days in Death Valley over
> 12 years. I have been wanting to go to DV but haven't made it yet (I
> live in Florida).  I have a brother in CA and have managed two short
> day trips to the Nat'l Mojave Scenic Area during visits.  I love the
> desert and this book has just pumped some air on the coals.
>
> Regards,
> Clayton
>
>

Clayton,

I just looked up the Photo Eye site, and found David Wing's book, which 
I had not known about.  I was hoping for a pic of him, or some other 
bio info to confirm that it's the same David Wing, but couldn't find 
any.  My guess is that it is the same guy.  When I knew him, he was 
shooting a lot of desert scenes as well.

He was an instructor at Grossmont College, which is a community college 
in the San Diego area with a very good photo department, of which he 
was department head at the time (1990).  He was shooting 4x5 Tri-X at 
the time, and he was also doing some computer imaging when it was still 
too early for any viable printing.  Somewhere here I have a camera that 
he put together from a Mamiya lens and a 4x5 back, which he called the 
"guerilla journalist", or something like that.  I bought it from him 
during one of the yearly photo equipment yard sales the college has.  
He is one of the top black and white printers in the San Diego area.

Gene Nocon is another one.  Gene has (or had, last I knew) a black and 
white printing business in San Diego, called In House.  Gene lived for 
some 18 years in London, where he printed for top European commercial , 
fine art, and fashion photogs like Norman Parkinson and Cecil Beaton, 
as well as for members of the Royal Family.  These guys have allowed 
him to keep prints of their images, so the walls of his place have more 
amazing images on them than I've ever seen in a single gallery.  Gene 
was also notable in that once a month, the last Friday in the month, he 
had an open house, which he called Final Friday.  Anyone could go, and 
he would tell everyone exactly how he worked, how he printed.  He was a 
printer who used graded paper, and was expert at flashing it to get 
intermediate grades. But the amazing thing to me, and a testimony to 
his open mindedness, was that  after years of working a certain way, 
with graded papers and flashing, most guys would be rooted in stone 
forever.  Not Gene.  When the Oriental printing head with its mouse 
came out, he thought it was so cool and had so much power and 
flexibility, he immediately started using it with variable contrast 
papers, and even developed techniques for using it that Oriental hadn't 
thought of.    And, as opposed to some who jealously guard their 
secrets, he was one who would tell you how he did everything he did.  I 
learned techniques like flashing and lith printing from him, and 
benefited from just being around a truly inspired and generous spirit.  
And the prints on the walls.... fantastic.  He had a book out that then 
went out of print, and that came back for a short printing.  I have it 
here somewhere, but can't lay my hands on it and its name escapes me 
right now.  He also had a web site a few years ago, but that was an 
early attempt, and his images were GIFs (I pointed out to him that 
jpegs would have been better- we were both just getting familiar with 
digital at the time), and they didn't do justice.  Anyway, it'd be well 
worth looking him up if that would ever be workable for you.  He's a 
guy that any other printer would want to talk to, and whose work anyone 
would want to see.  It wouldn't surprise me if he's heavily involved in 
inkjet printing today.  I don't know that that's true, but I know that 
if he is, he'd be tops at it.

Back to David Wing- you saw my post in reply to one by Josh Freeman, 
who is currently working in the Grossmont photo department.  He tells 
me that David is retired now.  You could probably get additional info 
from him.

James


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