 What set Monte's work apart from his peers was the innovative use of daylight from a north-facing window and a reflector for his formal posed portraits using backgrounds he had hand-painted on linen roll-up window shades to mimic the look of Old Master painters.He cleverly marketed this style as an "Old Master Style" which appealed to his niche market.By the late 1960s color had started replacing black and white for shooting weddings, and electronic flash guns replaced flash bulbs.