The places and faces of Queanbeyan

The online photo diary is a growing collection of the people and places she stumbles across during her travels around Queanbeyan.

She's photographed her friend and local artist Fiona Hill, fifth generation butcher Peter Lindbeck, hip hop crew Macho Duck and locations including kangaroos relaxing at the Queanbeyan Golf Club, poppies by Queanbeyan Railway Station and birds hanging out on a wire on Anne St.

Each entry is accompanied with a few lines, a little anecdote shared between subject and photographer.

"I just think everybody has an interesting story even if they don't realise it," Mrs Ferreira said.

"I'm not putting any sort of restrictions on [the project] because it does constantly evolve. I don't know where it's heading and that's the nice thing about not being tied to something."

Mrs Ferreira, 34, has lived in Queanbeyan for eight years. She launched the project late last year and she hopes it will foster a sense of pride among Queanbeyanites. Further down the track, she would like to hold an exhibition for 'iamqbn'.

"The more people I talk to, the more I realise that people are proud of living in Queanbeyan and there is so much good stuff here," she said.

"I think a lot of people locally will like looking through it and relating to other people's stories or being surprised that these people live in their local area or see areas in Queanbeyan that they haven't gone to.

"I would like to do an exhibition ... it would be nice for people to go and look at [the photos] and be really proud of what Queanbeyan has to offer and invite their friends from Canberra and say 'look at this, how cool is it?'"

Mrs Ferreira said the idea for 'iamqbn' had been floating around for a while but the catalyst came after experiencing the inevitable post-holiday blues.

"I was on such a high from these trips [to China and Portugal] and taking amazing photos and being inspired... then I was like, what now? I don't have any trips planned, what am I going to be inspired by?," she said.

"That's why I really wanted to do this project on Queanbeyan so that I could just go out and get inspired by Queanbeyan and my every day and stay motivated.

"Otherwise, I'd just go to school drop-off, go shopping, go to the Plaza and it was all boring and mundane every day.

"But now that I have this project I'm looking at everything differently - which is what photography does - it just makes you see everything so differently."

A self-confessed introvert, Mrs Ferreira said the photo project has helped her come out of her shell and gives her a reason to approach people she wouldn't normally otherwise.

"I can't go anywhere without going 'oh I want to talk to that person'. I love having an excuse to go up to people and say 'hey, what are you doing?'. I always just see people and go 'hmm, that's an interesting person'," she said.

"They're often very hard to crack in the beginning but most people like telling their story and they're always quite happy to share it.

"Everyone's been really nice and happy to share. It is scary to go up to someone because you don't know what you're going to get."

Scrolling through the images, it's hard to believe Mrs Ferreira only picked up the camera about five years ago.

It began with wanting to capture images of her daughters, now aged eight and six, and then grew into something much more.

"I was never interested in photography, never. I took the worst photos ever. I was absolutely useless...," she said.

"I did this one day photo course and that month I took about 100 photos. I was hooked straight away. I loved it.

"It was exactly what I needed at that point of my life ... it helped unlock my brain and get me out of my big, dark cloud. I just never stopped taking photos, I was obsessed. I just wanted to get better and better and better."

She kept taking snaps and eventually was accredited through the Australia Institute of Professional Photography and mentored by local snapper, Hilary Wardhaugh. She now offers professional photography services as part of her graphic design business.

Mrs Ferreira said she doesn't really know where the end point for her project will be. She's just content to continue posting up her images for the world to see.

"I didn't put [iamqbn] on Facebook because I didn't want to get hung on comments and how many likes I got. I didn't want to get distracted by that, because it wasn't about how popular it is or if people like it," she said.

"Sometimes you've just got to do it for yourself, not judging your worth by how many 'likes' you've got."

n View iamqbn by visiting iamqbn.tumblr.com and more of Mrs Ferreira's work at www.libcreative.com.au.