A stroll with Matt of Silk Imagery

I’ve admired Matt’s work for some time now, ever since I found his Silk Imagery blog while looking up some ideas for using textures while I was still studying for my Diploma.

Matt’s style is polished, his images are creative, and he is very generous with his knowledge. Plus, he uses the NIK Software plug ins, which I absolutely adore. Show him some love over at Silk Imagery

The challenge that we decided on was to use only ONE prime lens all day. Matt shoots with a lovely Canon 1DII, and I lent him my Sigma 85mm f1.4 art series, which I pretty much had to wrestle back off him at the end of the day. This lens is amazing, and you will notice I mention it a lot in the images I share here, because it is nearly always on one of my bodies.

I decided to REALLY challenge myself, and go wide. 40mm pancake lens onto my 5dII. This combo is super light without the grip, and doesn’t usually need a strap. While not my usual walk around choice, in fact, this lens has been just a little neglected lately, so definitely time to reconnect. Using two distinctly different lenses also meant that we would both be seeing the city in altered ways, and I decided that I would probably focus on details, as this lens really is quite wide to use in alleys and such. A test of how we would work together, as we had previously chatted about doing weddings as a pair.

Bourke Street mall was crowded by the time we rocked up. The atmosphere was a little harried, just a week before Xmas, but there were many families gathered to look in the store windows and enjoy the displays, lots of friends catching up for the festive season, and of course, all the decorations.

The RMIT graduation parade happened while we were on Swanston Street, my goodness, they have a LOT of graduates! While that was impeding our pedestrian activities, we looked around for other inspiration

Most of our attention was focused on the marvellous alleyways that Melbourne has, from ever changing street art, through to bustling cafes and boutiques, and quiet little access ways, Melbourne has everything, in abundance.

For lunch, we met up with one of Matt’s former workmates, who had a beautiful film camera for his collection, she was SO lovely, I wish I could put her in front of my lens one day. Lunch and more wandering, including this little gem in an alleyway that was al contained on one windowsill.

Finally, time to call it a day, but I really am looking forward to doing it all again.