Yesterday, Matt dragged the lovely and talented Monica Saaty into the studio and chatted with her for an hour about what she does, who she is, and all manner of deep photographically-related topics.
Monica hails from Phoenix and has been shooting “seriously” for about four years, but she’s been shooting since she could hold a camera. “I used to steal my mom’s camera all the time - she’s got a bunch of pictures of my barbies from when I was little.”
These days, she’s a junior in the photography program at NAU, minoring in graphic design and contemplating study in advertising.
Her inspiration includes Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Annie Leibovitz. In addition to the classics, Monica is a huge Flickr advocate - using the Internet and the community on Flickr for inspiration and a great sharing platform.
When asked to pick our her favorite subject to photograph, Monica chose sunsets and landscapes. She loves being out during that last Golden Hour, with or without a camera. In fact, until about a year ago, Monica was a self-described anti-portraitist. “I thought people were so ugly, for the longest time,” compared to the sunsets and landscapes that captured her heart. Eventually though, she got sucked into photographing her friends and from there she spawned Saaty Photography, which specializes in maternity and newborn photos, as well as senior portraits and of course, beautiful landscapes.
One of the things that drew our eye to her photographs is her frame-within-a-frame style that is so well done and so natural. FWAF is something a lot of photographers play around with and then discard. Monica has perfected the technique and uses it frequently.
Her views on photoshop? She can use it - but she prefers not to whenever possible.
This-coming semester she is taking Color Portrait and Studio (tabletop) classes at NAU, and she hopes to be able to teach her fellow students some tips and tricks, while learning from them as well. She hopes to be able to put her own spin on photographs within the confines of a studio, where she has seldom worked before.
This last photograph of hers is hands-down my favorite, and one I would proudly hang in my home or business. In fact, I think I’ll try and get my hands on a print of this.
If you haven’t heard of Monica before and want to see more examples of her photography, be sure to check out her Flickr and website! Add her on Facebook! Follow her on Twitter! Subscribe to her Blog!
If you’re looking for prints of her work - feel free to email her for a quote: monica@saatyphotography.com
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