Photographer Heide Smith’s exhibition captures around 50 oyster farmers at work, and aims to showcase the people behind the growing industry.

Some of the faces will be familiar ones, with oyster farmers from all major oyster-producing estuaries between the Shoalhaven and the Victorian border featured.

The area was last year branded ‘Australia’s Oyster Coast’, with an association formed to help oyster farmers better market and sell themselves.

Ms Smith said her exhibition, which made its public debut at April’s Narooma Oyster Festival, offers a snapshot into a world many people have never seen before.

“From my home near Narooma, I watch oyster farmers in their punts tending their brood in all-weather from very early in the morning,” she said earlier this year.

“They seem so connected with nature and that to me is a good way to be.

“In a lot of portraits I’ve taken over the years I had to flatter people.

“What I love about this collection is it shows the very essence of the people who work in the industry along the coast; honest hard working men and women.

“I think people will be endeared by these portraits.”

The Eden leg of the exhibition will be officially launched at an ‘Oysters, Whales and Wine’ night at the Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre, from 5.30pm on Friday, October 31.