Who’d have known bees were so fluffy and flies were so colourful?
Kelly D’Andrea sure didn’t until she started looking at them through a macro lens.
The Shepparton local has always loved taking photos, but when she purchased the latest iPhone, she fell more in love with the art.
“I started playing around with the macro mode and was having so much fun and posting all my photos on Facebook,” Mrs D’Andrea said.
“One of my friends asked if I would like her old camera body she had no use for, so I purchased a second-hand macro lens about a year ago and that was the beginning of the obsession.”
One might be tempted to consider the term ‘obsession’ too strong, however, Mrs D’Andrea has gone so far as to plant an entire ‘macro garden’ in her backyard to attract specific kinds of insects for photographing.
“I will generally plant for the bees as I realise how important they are to our ecosystem, but more specifically I am trying to attract as many blue-banded bees as I can,” Mrs D’Andrea said.
“I plant lots of blue and purple varieties, but mostly salvias because the bees love them.”
She said Australia’s native blue-banded bees were her hands-down favourite bugs to photograph because they were fast, making them incredibly difficult to photograph and therefore all the more rewarding when she did manage to capture a clear picture of one.
“I love the joy that it brings, finding an insect as simple as a bee and then seeing it in a whole other way, or finding an insect that is generally more elusive or skittish,” Mrs D’Andrea said.
“Managing to get a good, close-up photo of them is so exciting.
“My family likes seeing the photos, too. I have noticed they are looking out for insects more, or calling me outside when they see something interesting.”
Mrs D’Andrea’s focus will have to shift somewhat heading into the colder months when many insects disappear, but with inspiration from her passionate Shepparton Camera Club friends, subjects shouldn’t be too difficult to find.
“Recently, I went into the forest and captured some fungi, which I really enjoyed, so I’m hoping to do a bit more of that in the future,” she said.
“I’d love to take some decent wildlife shots and possibly some astro photography, too.”
Mrs D’Andrea’s images have won a couple of local Facebook photography competitions, a best image award in one of the local camera club competitions and a top-10 placing in Camera House’s weekly competition.
Despite her flair for the craft and the accolades her photos have received in such a short journey, Mrs D’Andrea has no plans to turn the hobby into a career.
“It is purely a hobby, as I have so much fun with it,” she said.
“I feel like in some ways it has changed my life, I find so much joy in just looking for insects and then discovering one or even just sitting back and observing them without a camera and realising there is a whole tiny world living under our noses that we don’t even think about.”