Digital BW, The Print

Clayton and James,

Yes that book is by the David Wing from Grossmont College. He retired
from teaching this past year and is working in Los Angeles now.
www.davidwing.com As for anecdotes, I don't really have any as he
almost always taught during the day and I was basically only there at
night. So I never had a class with him in the 3 years I had been there
before he retired, so I never really got to know him. I do know that
he has been printing with a 7600 for quite a while now, though last I
heard he still printed silver as well. As for what is in the book, I
couldn't say. you could always ask him, his email is on the site.

As for Gene Nocon, after you mentioned what he had done James, I
remembered that I had heard of him and his workshops from Jim Noel,
don't know if he still does those friday open houses or not, at least
in 2001 he did. I just looked at his website and it says he still
prints traditional black and white but has also embraced digital.

And yes, without modesty, Grossmont does have one of the best photo
departments in at least San Diego.

Josh Freeman


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, James Irelan
<james@r...> wrote:
> 
> 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
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]