The appearance of the Cicadas, a super family of insects along the eastern United States after a 17-year hiatus has inspired professional portrait photographer Oxana Ware to create small-scale art installations, placing the ubiquitous bugs in novel and unexpected settings.
The pictures portray excellent storytelling skills, dedication to a craft and a very active imagination.
The 39-year-old mother of three says she teaches her kids to just be playful and respectful of nature and that’s how the idea was born. “We started with my son’s firetruck and that was just a huge hit.”
Ware collects the cicadas in her yard and places them in dollhouse-sized settings she has made to showcase them. Understandably, it is not an easy task to get the insects in position.
Being a Russian immigrant, Ware finds exciting ways to bring her home country into her cicada portrait art with a picture of one crawling up the façade of St. Basil’s Cathedral.
The photographer admits that what started as a lighthearted way to memorialize the cicadas has helped children become unafraid of the cicadas.
