biography

Anita has been passionate about art since a very young age... experimenting in painting, drawing, sculpture, theatre, voice, and dance throughout her young life, and stumbling upon her calling as a photographer while in college. She started snapping shots of her friends as a hobby, but was surprised to find their parents offering to pay for the finished portraits! "I just did it for fun," she says, "but then I started getting phone calls from my friends' families offering to buy 8 x 10s of the photos I had shot, and a business just started all on its own."

After graduating in 1993 with a degree in Communication Arts from Allegheny College (where she studied documentary filmmaking and fine art photography), Anita began assisting a commercial and fashion photographer in Pittsburgh, PA. Working on models' portfolios taught her the subtle nuances of lighting and posing, as well as the nuts and bolts of how to make her newfound passion into a sustainable business. Once again, a future career began to materialize almost by accident, when friends began asking her to take a few candid pictures at their weddings. At the time, posed, "cheesy" pictures were the norm for wedding photography, and Anita was not interested! She snapped her own style of candids of brides, grooms, children, and families in intimate, genuine moments, and the overwhelming reaction to what had been another whimsical side-project showed Anita the direction that her life, and her art, was about to take. In 1996, Anita made Buzzy Photography a full-time business, and found herself immediately booked solid shooting portraits and wedding. Since then, Anita's unique style and ability to capture everyone from children to CEOs in comfort, confidence, and poise has made Buzzy a familiar name to Pittsburghers. Anita shoots in her home studio in Squirrel Hill, and on location all around the Pittsburgh area. She continues to build the Buzzy Photography reputation on her unique, artistic style, and the intense dedication and personal rapport she develops with all her clients. "Most of my clients feel like friends to me", she says. "I love what I do so much, that I think people really feel that and can relax and get into it. In this way, I'm able to capture natural expressions and genuine emotion."

Anita lives with her husband, Jesse, and their two little girls, Cassandra and Vanessa, in Pittsburgh, PA.