If you want a safe bet for who will be Generation Alpha’s answer to Sir David Attenborough, look no further than a ten-year-old girl from Wales whose wildlife photography is already hoovering up awards.
Jamie Smart, from mid-Wales, has won two categories in the RSPCA Young Photographer Awards, finished runner-up in three categories and was commended in four. Earlier this year she won the ten-and-under category at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition for an image of a spider in a web covered in droplets of dew.
“I started photography when I was about six and a half but my passion for wildlife started with dinosaurs when I was about two,” she said. “My dad asked if I’d like to use a camera because I was finding it hard to use binoculars. I started getting pictures of sparrows in the bushes and things around the garden and improved in my photography.”
Jamie with her father James and her RSCPA photography awards
TIMES MEDIA LTD
Her first camera was no toy or child-friendly beginner model. It was her dad’s Nikon D500 digital SLR camera that had been sitting on a shelf in the garage. “I didn’t want to drop it as I did know how expensive it was,” said Jamie, who is known as Eagle Eyed Girl on social media. “Dad said it would take a while for me to learn how to capture birds in flight but it just took a couple of days,” she said. “I got a picture of a peregrine falcon, the fastest bird in the world, flying over our house. I’m a wildlife nerd so I could identify it even in semi silhouette.”
Her true love is for bugs. An image of a water boatman won her the prize in the “small world” category at the RSPCA awards and she was commended in the same category for an image of a trapdoor spider lurking in a tunnel waiting for its prey. “Bugs are incredible,” she said. “They’re so colourful and their behaviours are just extraordinary. I’d like to go to rainforests and discover new species.”
“Space bug” won in the small world category
JAMIE SMART
She said that her father, James, 40, a carpenter and builder, would not want to visit Australia because of creatures that “want to kill you”. Jamie said she soon “educated him”, however, and the family visited Australia where she took photos of the newly identified Jade huntsman spider. “We were out every night looking for bugs, spiders and snakes,” she said. “I’d love to see a giraffe weevil out in the wild. I do love my weevils.”
The overall winner of the RSPCA competition was Thomas Durrant, 17, for an image of a stag silhouetted in the dark, its breath visible with a red glow. He also won in his age category and won the “portfolio” award.
The winning image
THOMAS DURRANT
“All entries are judged entirely anonymously and separately from one another,” the RSPCA said, noting that this made multiple awards and commendations for the precocious photographers even more “staggering”.
Jamie won the documenting animals category with a three-photo series entitled “caped crusaders”, showing the grey-headed flying fox bat. She was also runner-up in the pet portraits category for a quizzical photo of Pip the guinea pig and commended in the same category for a close-up of a grinning tortoise called Lenny. She was runner-up in the better world for animals category with a photo of a rescued chick in a knitted nest and commended for a close-up of a bee peering out of its own nest. She was also runner up in the under-12 category for a picture of embracing baboons at Yorkshire Wildlife Park.
“Caped crusaders” won the documenting animals category
JAMIE SMART
Jamie is homeschooled by her parents and said her friends were “amazed” at her adventures, including an invitation to go to Kenya where she was enchanted by the big cats, particularly a serval, but was particularly thrilled by seeing a praying mantis and dung beetles in the wild.
An articulate, engaging and passionate speaker with a wry sense of humour, it is easy to imagine Jamie coming out from behind the lens and featuring in front of it when she is older. Could she be the next Attenborough? Does she have other heroes? “A little bit of Bertie Gregory and Steve Backshall and Steve Irwin and Robert Irwin,” she said.
Her mother, Eleri, 48, said: “Her passion has just flourished. We are guided by Jamie’s passion. We see what she’s good at and what lights up those eyes of hers and then try to sort of feed and nurture and go with it.”
“Cut above the rest”
JAMIE SMART
“Crochet comfort”
JAMIE SMART
