Artist's Biography

I have been making black and white film photographs and prints in the darkroom for over 45 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.

In 2012 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. I recently 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 started teaching photography workshops, holding periodic “Photo Chat Get- Togethers,” exhibiting my work again, and teaching a courses I developed at Delaware Valley University’s Center for Learning in Retirement and Temple University’s Lifelong Learning Society.

In 2020, I founded The Monalog™ Collective and serve as its President. Monalog is a group of black and white film photographers who create images using traditional wet printing methods and materials such as silver gelatin paper in the darkroom or alternative processes and papers they coat themselves. The collective is made up of like-minded photographers operating at a high skill level that has formed to promote black and white analog photography, the industry that supports it. It fosters the growth of our community through membership and engagement with others, individually and through broader collaborative activity – www.monalogcollective.com.