View the complete Monalog show online or in person at Gallery 270 through February 29, 2024
Michael Marks Artist Bio
I have been making black and white film photographs and prints in the darkroom for over 50 years. I started when I was a kid growing up in Buffalo, NY, with a Kodak Brownie my parents gave me. Things moved into high gear when I got my first Instamatic and then my Argus C3. When I was 15 the next major step occurred – my parents let me set up my first darkroom in our small basement.
I am largely a self-taught “amateur”, having never attempted to make a living from photography. That said, I have taken some classes as electives in college, read a lot, self discovered a lot more, made many great friends near and far, had my work exhibited as career and family time would allow and attended some interesting workshops along the way with the likes of John Sexton, Henry Gilpin, Steve, Szabo, Michael Smith, Paula Chamlee and Frank Van Riper.
About ten years ago I abandoned a safe existence living in the metropolitan Washington, DC area, for as some like to say “something different”, and moved to Doylestown Pennsylvania. Since them I have launched a website and write a weekly blog dedicated to black and white film photography, the magic of the darkroom, and the community that loves it — www.michaelmarksphoto.com. I have also taught photography workshops, given lectures, held periodic “Photo Chat Get-Togethers”, exhibited my work in the US and overseas, and instructed courses called “Living a Photographic Life” and “Planning and Creating a Photographic Project at Delaware Valley University’s Center for Learning in Retirement and Temples University’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
In 2019 I founded and became president of the Monalog Collective, a group of black and white film photographers who create Black and White images using traditional wet printing methods and materials. Recently I established Monalog Press and hope to use it as a publishing vehicle for my own work and other like-minded Black and White analog photographers.