TITLE: Abbey Church of St. Mary and St. Louis

While visiting family in St. Louis last year, I took the opportunity to explore the city’s striking architecture through my lens. This image captures the Abbey Church of St. Mary and St. Louis — a modernist masterpiece designed by Gyo Obata and completed in 1962. Its sweeping curves and raw concrete surfaces created a strong visual foundation, but it was the play of light and shadow that truly stood out. I chose to work in black and white to emphasise these contrasts, using tonal edits to draw out the deep textures and sculptural lines of the structure. The result is an image that highlights the church’s bold geometry and quiet drama in a timeless monochrome palette.

AUTHOR: Matthew Tuffield (Australia)

I am a very enthusiastic and arty individual who loves to be involved in anything relating to Photography, Communications and any sort of new media. In 2004 I completed my Bachelor Degree in Multimedia which introduced me to media elements such as video capturing and editing within Adobe Premiere, Sound development in Soundforge and ACID Pro, Photography and graphic editing with Photoshop and Lightroom, and interactive projects using Flash and Director. I then completed my Graduate Certificate in Communications at the start of 2016 which developed my skills further within media publications, company relations and media communications.

I have enjoyed studying the art of photography for the past 13 years and I continue to learn and try my hand at all types of photography work. I am continually learning more about the different styles and concepts of photography, and also about the editing process through Photoshop, Lightroom and similar photographic effects programs such as Topaz Effects.

​Designing graphic art and publications has become a great love of mine in recent years. Again I continue to try and learn the functionalities of new programs such as Adobe Muse (websites) and Adobe Indesign (Media publications) and feel that I can pick these programs up very quickly. Over the years I have self-taught myself to use Photoshop, Lightroom, Muse, InDesign and of course my Cannon camera.

In 2017 I won the Australian Photographer of the Year competition for the Black and White section through the Australian Photography magazine. Since then I have continued my love of photographing architecture and capturing beautiful elements in black and white.