As part of programming related to the Monalog Collective’s show at Penn State Lehigh Valley, I was asked to give an artist lecture called “Michael Marks: A Passion for Analog Photography and Music”. I gave my talk this past week and it went very well. No one fell asleep or walked out while I was speaking! As part of the talk I was able to show a number of my prints, the cameras I have used to make them, as well some of my favorite vinyl record albums. Staying on theme I even made some pictures and stopped at a used record store on the way there! All in all a great experience!
I thought you might enjoy my talk, so here it is!
- Hello, I’m Michael Marks and I am very pleased to be back to Penn State to talk to you about my passion of Analog … Analog Photography, notably black and white – using light sensitive silver-based film and paper and traditional darkroom practices, and Analog Music – listening to vinyl records created from a pure analog process chain.
- Before diving in I’d like to thank Ann Lalik for asking me to give this somewhat offbeat talk. I hope you’ll find it interesting and perhaps amusing.
- I’m a black and white film photographer. I make prints on silver gelatin paper under the light of an enlarger using negatives I’ve developed. I’ve done this for more than 50 years. My pictures are made with 60 year old mechanical cameras. I’ve never made a digital photograph for personal work … only to sell stuff on eBay. So that doesn’t count. There is something very pure, authentic, and visually rich with a real sense of immediacy … to me … about black and white photographs printed on silver gelatin paper. They allow me to best express myself and there’s great joy in creating the finished product!
- I only listen to vinyl LPs. And I listen to them through equipment using 60 year old tube electronics instead of transistors. I have done this for more than 50 years. I only listen to CDs in my car because I can’t play records there. So that doesn’t count.
- I listen to vinyl LPs for many of the same reasons why I use black and white film and make my own prints in my darkroom. There is something very pure, authentic, and tonally rich with a real sense of immediacy … to me … about listening to vinyl through a tube-based system, along with the entire vinyl experience … the record itself, the cover art, the album jacket and other materials that often accompany the record.
- So what’s going on here? Am I an Analog Luddite? I’d like not to think so. I use an iPhone after all … although I avoid text messaging, don’t do social media and have been told by friends I should have lived my life in the 1950s!
- My interest is primarily in photographing people in their environment, often seeking what I consider amusing. And what can be more amusing than a Donald Trump zombie standing next to another zombie with a huge kitchen knife protruding from her head? I really don’t know, so when I saw that picture before me I had no choice but to make it! You can see if you agree … it’s around the corner at the exhibit “The Monalog Collective: Traditional Analog Black and White Prints”.
- So Monalog is an interesting name for a group of photographers isn’t it. I thought so when I first came up with the idea while taking a walk.
- What if you combined the concept of monochrome, which is another word for black and white, and analog which is another word for non-digital. All of sudden the word Monalog flashed before me … spelled MONALOG … not MONOLOGUE which is what Jimmy Fallon does every night when he opens the Tonight Show!
- When I founded our Collective in 2019, and dedicated it to supporting black and white film photography and traditional printing processes, it made sense to call it Monalog. And because I couldn’t help myself I actually trademarked the word!
- My passion for analog black and white analog photography goes back to when my parents gave me my first camera, a Kodak Brownie, when I was 10 years old.
- Here it is!!!
- I loved making pictures and going to camera stores. I could look at the cameras, talk to the salespeople and learn everything I could. They’d let me hold pick up and marvel at anything I wanted to see even though they knew my paper route money wouldn’t get me too far.
- Given my finances, I became good at buying and selling to get what I wanted and finally ended up with a used Nikon F2, which was and still is a spectacular camera. I also was able to somehow finagle a Hasselblad 500C camera with a gorgeous chrome Zeiss lens. I loved that camera but soon needed money to buy a car, so off it went. Having a ride was better than having your parents drive you on a date!
- Beginning with my first one in my parent’s basement I’ve always had a darkroom, except when I was away at school or newly married.
- When we bought our first house I built a in darkroom in my basement.
- I wanted a 10 foot stainless steel sink but they were too expensive. So I told my wife I would build one out of wood. Being familiar with my skillset, her immediate response was laughing derision. She said it would be better if we found the money for the stainless steel sink. At least it wouldn’t leak.
- So what was I to do? The only thing possible, now that the gauntlet had been thrown – build a large wooden sink! It wasn’t perfect, but it held water and even drained as it should!
- One problem. After I built it in my darkroom space I realized if we ever moved it would never get out the door, let alone up the stairs. No problem, I used it for twenty-five trouble free years.
- I actually developed an attachment to the thing, so when we sold the house in 2012 I had another idea as improbable as my one to build the sink in the first place – saw it in half so it could be moved to Pennsylvania where it would eventually be put back together!
- Again, my wife thought I was crazy, so what was I to do? My friend brought his very large power tool over and in a few minutes the whole thing was cut in two.
- The pieces were moved to Doylestown from the DC suburbs, and with the help of a kindly carpenter, who first laughed but then felt sorry for me, the sink was put back together.
- I thought you might like to see some examples of my work – black and white pictures made with film and printed on silver gelatin paper in my darkroom. I also brought some of my cameras used to make them.
SHOW PICTURES AND CAMERAS
- As I’ve said, I have another passion … listening to music … on vinyl records played using ancient tubes. Not surprising, I don’t own a CD player and don’t stream either. Hum … black and white film photography, vinyl and tubes. Perhaps there’s a pattern here!
- Why analog playback? Like analog black and white photography it’s just more real and immersive. Records sound more like live music with a warmth and lush sound that make you want to keep listening. The whole experience is special to me. The art and craft that goes into the making vinyl … the entire analog chain from capturing the live performance on tape to creating a master lacquer and the pressing of records onto the vinyl. The tactile pleasure of handling the record itself, cleaning the record, putting the needle down on the record, the pleasure of looking at the record sleeve and other materials that accompany the record, the beautiful outer jacket, and most important … the sound.
- I began listening to records in the early 1960s but I got hooked for good when I first heard the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967 on my cousin Elliot’s Zenith Circle of Sound stereo. I think we listened to it about 11 times that day! And yes, it changed my life!
- Thanks to my paper route earnings I soon I had my first stereo. The brands are long gone but my fond memories remain.
- Today I own over 6000 records. Just ask my wife about my habit. I buy them at record stores like Double Decker Records in Allentown and from online shops and individuals all over the world. Old records and new ones.
- That’s right new vinyl! Here’s a news flash. Today they’re selling more turntables than ever before and more LPs are being produced than CDs … because … you guessed it … they’re better!
- Admittedly I have more records than I will ever listen to in my lifetime. Even if I don’t get to listen to them all I can admire them, their jackets, the artwork, and just everything about them.
- Here’s a record I own you should be familiar … A UK pressing of Sgt. Pepper with along a CD copy I borrowed from a friend. And here are a few others.
SHOW RECORDS AND CDs
- Ok, now you know about me and my two passions. Now some more on why you should consider analog in making photographs and listening to music!
- The look and depth of an analog print, especially black and white … you can see into it … it’s not sitting on top of the surface of the paper like an inkjet print. Just look at our show, but its more than that. It is about an entire photographic process ritual that’s slow and deliberative, from loading the film into your camera to carefully metering the light and framing your picture, to developing your film, to printing the final version of your picture in the darkroom after many failed tries.
- This is so much different than the digital workflow.
- We move at an ever-faster pace in our daily lives and become drawn into the digital/ mobile/ phone tablet/ computer vortex. Do you want that as part of your creative life?
- So how do you create something meaningful rather than more noise? I think this question is at the heart of the film/photographic process.
- I believe there is something special about the film/photographic process. You work slower and more deliberatively, connecting with subjects rather than firing off hundreds or even thousands of shots per day, hoping later to find a few “keepers” buried within all the rubble. Analog photography is a contemplative approach that supports the creative process, and is much different than the digital experience.
- There’s a quiet solitude working in the darkroom with only a dim safelight on. And there’s nothing quite like the magic of exposing a blank sheet of photographic paper under the light of the enlarger, then watching your picture slowly emerge as the paper floats in the tray of developer.
- Compare that to making a digital print … sitting in front of a computer with Photoshop, then pushing a button to print with ink. I believe and have found in my own experience that anything worth doing is hard. And there’s a special satisfaction in the accomplishment!
- A friend of mine who is a very fine photographer went over to the dark side and even took a workshop on how to be a better digital printer. One day I was looking as some of his prints and asked how long it took to make them. He told me he did it during commercials while watching a football game.
- Digital is just so damn easy and the results often show it. I’ve taught photography classes and all my students use digital devices. I tell them the most important thing they can do to improve their results is to slow down and concentrate.
- Then there’s Photoshop. I think it’s essential that it be used subtly and judiciously. Unfortunately this isn’t always the case. Yes, we dodge and burn and use different paper contrasts when we print in the darkroom, but in the digital world it’s just too easy to overly manipulate things … because … well … it’s just too easy.
- What we’re really talking about is convenience vs. craft. In my opinion, digital is really about convenience and speed. And why not? That’s what we look for in the rest of our daily lives, from fast food, to home delivery, to text messaging.
- Recently I heard that over 3 billion photographs are being made each day. That’s right – 3 BILLION! Very few of these are being printed. So when displayed, they appear mainly on the Internet via the various photo sharing sites. The vast majority are most certainly digitally based. I think that’s fine, but how do you rise above the overwhelming quantity to create something truly meaningful to you?
- Well, I believe more and more people are going back to film-based photography. Things will never be what they were 15 or 20 years ago, but again who would have thought vinyl LPs would make such a comeback. People are longing to create something that is truly tangible, the result of a linear creative process that can be held in one’s hands, vs. something viewed in a fleeting moment on an electronic device or as a single dimensional print made during a television commercial.
- Maybe you know this is true. There’s no hiding, no excuses, and it takes much more effort and more thought — but so does anything that is truly worthwhile in life!
- Think about it … it’s the picture you first envision in your mind’s eye and expose on film; the developed negative results in a print you labor to make as best as you can to recreate your original vision, then you finally view and ultimately hold in your hands the results of your finished work. That’s satisfying, even more so if you hang your print on a wall somewhere.
- So what to do? I think easy and convenient go hand in hand. But easy and convenient don’t always produce the best results or the most satisfying outcomes.
- Somewhere there needs to be a place in our lives for something that isn’t easy or convenient. There needs to be a place in our lives for something that is hard and inconvenient. For me it is my photography, how I go about creating my work and the craft of it. The ends justify the means. I have a similar approach to listening to music. Only vinyl played through tube electronics. Very inconvenient but the results are sublime.
- I have a wonderful library and study the greats … Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Paul Strand, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Alfred Stieglitz, Robert Frank. I have a wonder record collection and listen to Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Bob Dylan, the Beatles. My passion for analog photography and music playback has remained strong for almost sixty years.
- Like using film and making traditional wet prints, listening to my favorite vinyl records through tube electronics is the ultimate listening experience. When I sit down and listen to a good pressing of a Beethoven piano concerto or Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, turn the lights low and see the tubes glowing its sublime. Just like looking at an 8 x 10 contact print down the hallway.
- Oh and by the way, on March 9th, the Recording Industry Association of America confirmed that vinyl records outsold CDs in 2022, for the first time since 1987.
- Thank you.
Stay well,
Michael
