Art Starter: Matt Irwin

What do you love about photography as a medium?

It is the ability from this little device to be able to contextualise a moment, in a moment, then enjoy it forever.

Who is your favourite photographer?

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ansell Adams

If you could live in an art decade in history when would it be?

Too hard, there are some many; the 1890s, 1920s, 1960s, they are all good for different reasons. The beauty of Melbourne is it still retains architecture and views from some of these amazing points in our history.

What makes you have a love affair with Melbourne?

Melbourne is my hometown, so that is where it starts. Yet seeing Melbourne through a photographic eye, it has so much to offer. There is endless interesting architecture, a great macro and micro city, Melbourne has exciting and thrilling moods. And as I say in the front of my book, I have been chasing all the personalities of Melbourne for 25 years. It is my muse – it is a thrilling and exciting dance that after 25 years I can still find aspects that inspire, and I do. So it is a wonderful and fulfilling relationship, of putting in and getting back. When I was trying to title the book, in the end after endless possibilities, I said to myself what is the most honest thing I can say about what the book is about, and why it happened. Melbourne, and my love affair with it. I am still so pumped when the conditions are right and the elements align. It is wonderful - spine-tingling.

If you weren't an artist what would you be doing?

I am a big nerd, so working with computers. Or a filmmaker. And being a nerd interested in film it's hard to not look at Melbourne through a camera lens and see its filmic nature.

WHAT: Matt Irwin's Melbourne, A Love Affair book launch
WHEN & WHERE: Friday 14 December, Studio 72, The Nicholas Building, 6.30pm