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David King has drawn
and painted and taken pictures since grade school. In High
School (in Blue Springs, Mo) he was awarded an Art Scholarship to
Missouri State University, at Warrensburg. Instead, he went to work for Hallmark Cards
as an engraver and attended classes at the famous Kansas City Art
institute.
His involvement with
photography became more intense when he entered the Art School at
the University of Denver with a double major in Art and Philosophy
and discovered that at a time when "Conceptual Art" was the rage and
was sweeping the academic art world he was viewed as being at a
major disadvantage: he could draw. So he returned to an old interest
and started using photography as an increasingly important aspect
and element of his art work.
When he returned to
the University of Denver, following 4 yrs with AIS (Army Intelligence
and Security) and 3 yrs of Law School in San Diego (took the bar,
passed, but never practiced), to work on an MFA in printmaking, he
realized the situation had not changed much when he was asked, in
front of a class, if he did not think his expertise was a shackle to
his creativity. Believing rather that technical skill frees
creativity to express itself, he returned to the world of
professional photography and was co-owner of "The Darkroom,"
a combination rental lab, school of photography (26 courses/22
instructors) and gallery (the first in Denver to show the works of
Brett Weston and Morley Baer). Through the auspices of The
Darkroom he also ran photography and outdoor survival workshops int
he Colorado Mountain Back Country.
Since then he has been involved
in professional photography as well film and video production,
including a few years (1982 - 1984) working first as an Art Director
and then Creative Director for an ad agency in Denver, (Eastburn and
Associates) before forming "King II Productions," his own still and
video production company..
Over the ensuing years his work has won
numerous awards, including an Emmy nomination as Producer for an
anti-gang music video. His documentary and lyric outdoor images in
still photography have been featured in regional and national
magazines and his work among the northern New Mexico Pueblos was the
subject of a PM Magazine featured TV segment. That project,
"TEWA," on the Tewa-speaking Pueblos of New
Mexico is in the permanent collection of Mesa Verde National
Monument and frequently travels throughout the country.
A collection of portraits of Denver’s “Movers and
Shakers” was commissioned by and featured at the Colorado
Celebration of the Arts.
His work has been exhibited in galleries and private collections
around the country.
In
addition he produced the images for the pictorial book Santa
Fe, The City Different
and wrote the books Thinking
Digitally and Practical 3D Photography for students of
photography.
David's still work
specializing in editorial portraiture and commercial products and
his video/film documentaries and music videos, and his award-winning
industrial film/video production work has been produced for clients
in such wide-ranging industries as corporate, heavy industry, oil
and gas, mining, telecommunications, martial arts, law enforcement,
education/training, and recreation. He received a ISPI National
Award of Excellence for his training video work.
A
documentary on street gangs done for the Denver Police Department
("War on the Streets") received acclaim from police
and communities around the country as one of the best programs on
the subject produced to that date (1989).
He has
produced programs ranging from short music videos to longer
documentary and industrial programs of up to sixty minutes. He has
achieved a reputation for bringing in his projects on time and
within budget. It is precisely this type of experience and skill
that is both an asset and a requirement for being able to produce
high quality for the extremely limited budgets.
David
wrote, produced, and directed the western music video "Through
The Gap" starring Bruce Boxleitner and Martin Kove. He
wrote, produced, and co-directed the screenplay adaptation for the
short feature "Handler" (based on a segment from the
Jane Martin play, "Talking With").
His
feature production, a family adventure titled Moosie
is now being distributed and is available online through Netflix. Moosie
won a Videographer Award of Excellence, an AXIEM Silver
Award for Absolute Excellence In Electronic Media, and a Silver
Telly, plus it has been awarded the Dove Seal of Approval
for Family Programming.
Continuing through it
all to
produce still photography, he brought with him lighting and staging
expertise honed with the film and video production work.
David
has been teaching Professional Photography as well as Film and Video
Production since the late 1970s in California and Colorado. In
January 2000 he returned again to San Diego and taught as an adjunct
professor of photography at San Diego City College and at Palomar
College in San Marcos, CA. He
also conducts workshops and seminars on various areas of
photography, digital photography, and film/video production.
In December 2004 he was hired full time and is now an Associate Professor of
Photography at San Diego City College.
In addition to teaching, David
has been a judge at the famous International Photography Exhibition
at the San Diego County (Del Mar) Fair since 2000 and
is a returning member of the “Digital Dialog” panel of experts in
digital photography featured
each year during the exhibition.
He has also started giving
presentations to audiences at the Fair, for Photo groups, and at
conferences/ conventions. In addition to specific photo and
digital photo related topics such as HDRI, Macro, Panoramics and
Mosaics, etc. he also speaks on more general topics such as
Creativity, Becoming a "Black Belt" Photographer, and "The Photo
tips of Leonardo da Vinci."
Now "retired" from the
free-lance commercial world and no longer needing the constant
stream of clients thanks to being a tenured professor, David is
enjoying the time teaching, which he loves all by itself, allows him
to do more art oriented landscape and portrait work and to return to
writing and presenting. It is all now "fun" again and is time
to return some of the "stuff" life has pounded into him over the
past years and try to help students accelerate their learning
process and avoid some of the pitfalls he walked right into.
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