Christie Monteleone has reinvented the artful emotion of photography. Through her art, she has captured couples’ joy, strength, and unshakable bonds by understanding that each picture tells a story. Her work has taken her to the Netherlands, France, and Italy, with waiting lists of couples requesting to work with her numbering in the thousands. However, Monteleone credits her foundations as being formed by the aesthetics of Fire Island, while working at Maguire’s in Ocean Beach.
Today, in the selfie-driven, clickbait society, where people often mask their true selves behind self-created ideal images, we have lost the essence of capturing genuine experiences. Through our evolving technology, we have become something other than ourselves, and authentic, non-staged moments have become an endangered art form. Authenticity is craved now more than ever.
Fire Island News (FIN): What inspired you to get into photography?
Christie Monteleone (CM): When I was a kid, I was obsessed with my parents and grandparents’ photo albums. These pictures were intended to capture a moment of that time. No social media, just a simple memory. I wanted to know every story of every picture. The images romanticized my 22-year-old mom in Italy or my grandparents enjoying the East End of Fire Island. These pictures made me want my own summer in Italy and my own Fire Island experience. I started photography not as a business, but to capture memories I had obsessed over as a kid. I wanted my own photo albums to tell a story.
FIN: How does your work differ from that of other photographers?
CM: When you come to take photos with me, we are not going on a photo shoot. The concept is to capture the essence of a relationship between two people. In order to do this, you have to understand the story of the persons and what certain places mean to them. They have to trust me and show me who they are. This is not a curated thing, but we are going to make a memory together, and I am your witness. It is fully candid.
An example is to incorporate a place with emotional attachment into the pictures, capturing what ties them together.
FIN: What is the greatest challenge in your work?
CM: Nobody knows what a relationship looks like behind closed doors, which is an element of vulnerability. The true beauty of it is how you get to the essence of people you do not know and create that safe space. Getting them to this place when we never met before is the science behind it.
FIN: How did you refine/ develop your art?
CM: I learned how to do lifestyle photography on Fire Island. When I met Jenny Montiglio, owner of [the former] Ooh La La Boutique in Ocean Beach, I asked if I could do her social media photos. She would allow me to experiment with any creative idea I had—not a single idea was struck down—and from this, I learned about organic photography.
FIN: What made you want to specialize in couples?
CM: When I started taking family pictures, my couples’ photos would go viral and be in higher demand because this work has become an exploration of emotion. The emotional depths captured in the photo come from their memories and took on a life of their own.
FIN: What is the most inspiring theme about your work?
CM: When I photograph a couple, people would often tell me this is fairy tale-like and see it only through the lens of a perfect couple’s joy. However, the context of most relationships, and what I find most inspiring, is struggle. Much of the joy captured is that of two people who have just survived a great deal of hardship together, and they still find joy in life.
FIN: On your site, couples can submit their own stories. Please describe the story submission process.
CM: A couple submits a story, and I review the submitted stories, finding one that I connect with or find inspiring, and I photograph it. These stories help to put the pictures into context. The more you go into people’s lives, the further you go past the window visible on the surface. Social media is the screen; this work is beyond the screen. The stories are limitless.
FIN: Overall, how would you summarize your work?
CM: Photography is about reconnecting with your history. An example is when I walk around the places my mom visited in Italy, which were photographed in my mom’s albums; it makes the pictures come to life more. Now you can feel it, see it, and be in the images you were obsessed with.
The photos I take of couples provide a similar experience, freezing, preserving, and slowing down time to capture the moment.
Submit your own story to immortalize your special moment of joy and resilience.
https://www.ckmontphoto.com/subscribers-only/
