The seventh edition of the Close-Up Photographer of the Year Award, a competition designed to celebrate the “hidden wonders” of the world through macro, micro, and close-up imagery, chose winners from among more than 12,000 entries.
Close-Up Competition
According to a press release, the submissions, which came from 63 countries, were evaluated by naturalists, photographers, and editors. Entries were broken into 11 categories, such as animals, insects, butterflies and dragonflies, arachnids, invertebrate portrait, underwater, plants, fungi, and slime molds.
The overall winner was “Fractal Forest,” an underwater image of a cauliflower soft coral by Ross Gudgeon in the Lembeh Strait, Indonesia. The photographer threaded an extended macro wide lens through the branches of the coral, photographing the species from the inside out.
Some of the images contrasted nature with humanity’s impact. For example, the winning image in the insects category, titled “Blue Army,” which was captured in the town of Szentendre, Hungary.
Explore Tomorrow's World From Your Inbox
Get the latest science, technology, and sustainability content delivered to your inbox.
I understand that by providing my email address, I agree to receive emails from Tomorrow's World Today. I understand that I may opt out of receiving such communications at any time.
“After a few decades, the spectacular endangered Danube mayfly has returned to the river Danube, probably due to increasing water quality, after disappearing from the rivers of Middle Europe owing to water pollution,” said photographer Imre Potyó in a caption attached to his entry.
The photograph was taken in summer 2024, during a hot, dry period when the river was “overwhelmed” by “millions” of mayflies.
A few photographers in the competition photographed invasive species. For example, photographer Pedro Luna captured a box tree moth, native to Asia but considered an invasive species in Spain, where it was found. And fourteen-year-old American photographer Jameson Hawkins-Kimmel was awarded third place in the Young category for his image “Emerald Glow,” of a Cuban tree frog in his Florida backyard.
“This was the toughest competition yet,” said Tracy Calder, co-founder of the competition, in a press release.
Speaking on Gudgeon’s winning image, she said it “embodies everything close-up photography can achieve — it shows us a perspective we’ve never seen before and reveals hidden beauty in a familiar subject. The judges were captivated.”
