A child Instagram star called her award-winning photograph a ‘happy accident’ after a garden walk.
Jamie Smart’s photograph of a spider won the Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year award at Wolverhampton Museum & Art Gallery.
Dubbed the next David Attenborough during an appearance on Good Morning Britain, there is still time to see the image on display.
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“There were water droplets everywhere, and I thought it would be a really nice time to go out and capture some photos of animals,” said Jamie, who has over 170,000 followers on her Instagram account.
Spotting a blob of spider’s web among dead dock leaves, Jamie followed it until she found a garden spider, perhaps half a centimetre long, tucked up inside a hide-out which it weaves freshly each day.
Jamie Smart’s award-winning photograph -Credit:Wolverhampton Museum & Art Gallery/Jamie Smart
Jamie used flash and a diffuser, “changing setting and angles and all sorts” to light up the spider in a breath-taking shot.
Spiders are among Jamie’s favourite creatures to photograph and she is keen to dispel fears about them.
She said: “They (spiders) don’t want to harm you. They’re just full of character and some are really cute – their hunting behaviours are incredible”.
Home-schooled Jamie’s love of wildlife grew from her “immense” early passion for dinosaurs.
She has been taking animal photographs since she was six and a half, supported by dad James, a carpenter who used to take photos as a hobby but hadn’t picked up his camera in years.
James is now trying to master videography to film Jamie for social media, and to help her understand how the wildlife photography industry works.
He said: “We’ve been learning together, we never stop.”
The Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition will be available inside Wolverhampton Museum & Art Gallery until January 25.