By 13 she had secured her open-water scuba ticket and was exploring the depths of the ocean in Australia and overseas, encouraged by her ­parents, who both dive.

Now 24, Smart is a marine scientist and has spent the past couple of years honing her underwater photography skills, documenting a range of fascinating seascapes on her travels around the world.

And experts in the field are sitting up and taking notice, with Smart recently picking up a couple of impressive international awards.

Not only was she the overall winner and Innovation for a Sustainable Ocean category winner in the United Nations World Oceans Day photo competition in June, and her image shared across the globe, but Smart was also named the Ocean Geographic Emerging Photo Journalist of the Year in the Ocean Geographic Picture of the Year competition, drawing attention to her favourite places to dive — kelp forests.

Smart says she initially took up underwater photography purely for her own enjoyment, so having her work praised so highly was encouraging. She got her first underwater camera two years ago and started learning all she could about the craft.

“I read lots of books, watched lots of videos … it sort of evolved from there,’’ she said.

Smart uses a Sony Alpha A6000 mirrorless camera in a waterproof housing with two Ikelite strobes to capture her underwater scenes.

She prefers wide-angle images — often in Tasmania’s kelp forests and sponge gardens — and also enjoys taking animal portraits.

“I’d absolutely love to get more work published and do it on more of a professional basis,’’ Smart, from Bellerive, said.

She strives to find the perfect balance between good technique and great storytelling.

“With my underwater photography, I try to create something that makes people think,” she said.

“To not only show them what’s under the water, but also to show them something they may have seen before in a different way.”

She loves surprising people with images that capture the beauty of her home state. “A lot of people don’t think of Tasmania as an underwater destination,” she said. “I like being able to show people that we have really good underwater scenery here that is just as good as any coral reef you’ll see.”

Smart visited various dive sites around the globe as the Our World Underwater Scholarship Society’s Australasian Rolex Scholar of 2019, a prestigious program that gives ocean enthusiasts $30,000 to fund a 12-month exploration of the seas.

Only three people from around the world are chosen for these scholarships each year — one each from North America, Europe and Australasia — with recipients gaining hands-on ­experience in activities that will help them further their marine-related careers.

Smart followed in the footsteps of fellow Tasmanian Olivia Johnson, who was the first Tasmanian ever to win the award in 2018. Smart began her adventures in the middle of last year. She visited a shark conservation program in Fiji, went on assignment with National Geographic photographers on the Great Barrier Reef, dived in remote Papua New Guinea and cage dived with great white sharks in South Australia.

She also spent time in Scotland, Norway and North America, among other dive-friendly destinations. Two of the standout experiences were working on a seaweed farm in the Faroe Islands and tending to basil and tomato plants grown hydroponically in air-filled domes on the sea floor in Nemo’s Garden in Italy. Her scholarship was supposed to continue until June this year but was cut short due to the coronavirus.

Still, Smart says she’s thankful for the time she did have, and that she lives in such a beautiful part of the world, perfect for diving adventures.

“I grew up in Howrah but my family would spend each summer at Freycinet,” she said. “I spent a lot of time in the water on the Freycinet Peninsula and that definitely influenced my interest in the ocean.’’ She still visits the area regularly, when she’s not working in environmental consulting. She loves exploring Eaglehawk Neck, Governor Island Marine Reserve, at Bicheno, and areas of the River Derwent including Blackmans Bay, Tinderbox and Frederick Henry Bay.

Smart, who gained a Bachelor of Marine and Antarctic Science with first-class honours from the University of Tasmania, majoring in marine biology and marine and Antarctic ecology, says she loves how varied each dive can be.

She was a champion swimmer at school, spent several years at the Tasmanian Institute of Sport and later went on to win Surf Life Saving Tasmanian’s Iron Woman Championship.

So what is it that Smart loves so much about being in the water?

“The fact it can be so diverse and each time you go underwater you do have a different experience,” she said. “No matter what the conditions, you can get in and there’s something unique. Also, coming from Tasmania the ocean is so influential — so many Tasmanians work in it, on it or around it.’’