After I attended the last year’s Photo Arts Xchange organized by Steve Sherman and a number of other fine black and white photographers, I started to think about what I could do to further support a vibrant black and white analog photography community. I already had my own website that focuses on my love of black and white film photography and the darkroom, but I wanted to do more, and I sensed that there would be others that shared my passion and felt the same way.

At the Photo Arts Xchange I met a number of outstanding photographers that worked exclusively with black and white film and used only traditional wet processes to realize their exceptional vision. I decided to reach out to them and other like minded photographers I knew that I thought would be receptive to the idea of creating a photographer’s collective who’s sole mission would be to “support black and white film photography and traditional printing processes”.

The founders of this collective make silver gelatin enlargements, contact prints on Lodima and Azo paper, platimum and albumen prints and prints using carbon transfer processes. They use 35mm and medium format rangefinders, medium format SLRs, and a range of wooden view cameras that produce images using 4×5, 8×10, 11×14, 8×20 or 14×17 inch negatives. We all used different tools, films, chemistry and papers to create our art, but we share a love and unabiding commitment to black and white film and traditional printing processes.

We have chosen to call our collective Monalog™, a new word derived from “monochrome” and “analog”. We chose this because we don’t make color prints or incorporate anything digital in what we do … no scanning of negatives, no creation of “negatives” from digital files, and no digital printing of film negatives. This having been said, our objective is not to make judgments about color or digital, but support what we use and care deeply about.

Monalog™ was formed by six founding members: Mel Evans, Jim Fitzgerald, David Haas, Jim Kipfer, Michael Marks and Drew Wagner. Our goal is to grow through membership of fellow “monalog™” photographers that are dedicated to this wonderful medium and exhibit a high caliber of vision and adherence to their craft. We will also engage with others, individually and through collaborative activity, and support the industry that makes all this possible.

As best as I can tell, there is no other collective like Monalog™. I hope you will join us on this exciting journey!

Michael Marks
Doylestown, Pennsylvania
March 9, 2020