The Close-Up Photographer of the Year Awards 2022 has just announced its winners and finalists. With over 9,000 pictures from 54 countries, the jury has selected the best photographs across eleven categories: Animals, Insects, Butterflies and Dragonflies, Invertebrate Portrait, Micro, Young, Fungi, Plants, Intimate Landscape, Underwater and Manmade.
CUPOTY celebrates the art of close-up, macro and micro photography and recognizes the talented photographers who capture the beauty and complexity of the world around us in stunning detail. Scroll down to see the hidden wonders of the natural world! After you're done, you can have a look at the winning shots from 2020 and 2021.
#1 1st Place In The Category Of Fungi: "Ice Encrusted Comatricha" By Barry Webb
"In January last year, following two days of freezing fog and sub-zero temperatures, I found some mature Comatricha, growing on an old fence post lying on a pile of discarded, rotting timber. I was attracted to the way the ice had encased the slime mould, creating strange, windswept, leaf-like shapes. The tallest one was only 3mm high, including the ice. The final image is the result of 55 focus-bracketed images combined in Zerene Stacker."
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94points
Bored Panda got in touch with the CUPOTY team to learn more about the competition and its winning images. Dan Calder, one of the founders of the Close-up Photographer of the Year, revealed that the competition was founded in 2018 by Tracy and him – a husband and wife team with a photography and editorial background. "We felt macro photography was being overlooked and wanted to set up an annual competition that celebrated close-up, macro and micro photography. Our main aim was to show the things that are often overlooked, or go unseen without the aid of a macro lens or microscope."
#2 Close-Up Photographer Of The Year 2022 And Winner In The Category Of Animals: "Nature’s Pitfall" By Samantha Stephens
"Northern Pitcher Plants (Sarracenia purpurea) are carnivorous, allowing them to survive in nutrient-poor bog environments. Here there is no rich soil, but rather a floating mat of Sphagnum moss. Instead of drawing nutrients up through its roots, this plant relies on trapping prey in its specialized bell-shaped leaves, called pitchers. Typically, these plants feast on invertebrates – such as moths and flies – but recently, researchers at the Algonquin Wildlife Research Station discovered a surprising new item on the plant’s menu: juvenile Spotted Salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum).
This population of Northern Pitcher Plants in Algonquin Provincial Park is the first to be found regularly consuming vertebrate prey. For a plant that’s used to capture tiny invertebrates, a juvenile Spotted Salamander is a hefty feast!
On the day I made this image, I was following researchers on their daily surveys of the plants. Pitchers typically contain just one salamander prey at a time, although occasionally they catch multiple salamanders simultaneously. When I saw a pitcher that had two salamanders, both at the same stage of decay floating at the surface of the pitcher’s fluid, I knew it was a special and fleeting moment. The next day, both salamanders had sunk to the bottom of the pitcher."
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78points
#3 3rd Place In The Category Of Underwater: "The Martian" By Pietro Cremone
"At night, many planktonic forms of animals come up from the deep sea, making it possible to take pictures of these fantastic critters. This is the larval form of a mimic octopus (Wonderpus photogenicus). It was taken while I was floating 300ft below the surface at Anilao, Philippines in complete darkness without any points of reference."
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72points
For the judges, the CUPOTY 04 had a pretty impressive line-up of experts. The jury included current Wildlife Photographer of the Year Karine Aigner, Amateur Photographer editor Nigel Atherton, photographers Sue Bishop, Frank Deschandol, Matt Doogue, Guy Edwardes, Wim van Egmond, Viktoria Haack, Ross Hoddinott, Darren Jew, David Maitland, Scott Portelli, Rachael Talibart and Robert Thompson alongside editors Kathy Moran, K Madhavan Pillai, Bart Somers and Keith Wilson. Click here for more information about the judges.
#4 1st Place In The Category Of Intimate Landscape: "Frequency" By Mike Curry
"This is a reflection of a building at Canary Wharf in London taken in November. The water was moving in a very fluid way and I was there to try out my new Sony DSC-RX100M6 – I was particularly keen to test the camera’s fast burst and slow motion video modes. I was struggling to get it to focus on the water’s surface, but after about two hours of failed attempts it suddenly worked, and the results were amazing!"
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64points
#5 3rd Place In The Category Of Insects: "Little Naughty Draw Circle" By Minghui Yuan
"The beetle Aplosonyx nigriceps has developed a clever tactic to be able to eat the Alocasia macrorrhiza leaves and avoid the toxic alkalis that the plant secretes. It nibbles a 3cm circle on the leaves to cut off the toxin transmission before feasting inside the circle free of poison.
This example was photographed in Nonggang National Reserve, Guangxi Province, China."
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62points
Dan shared that one of their tag lines when selecting the winners was “See the world anew” and that was the thought behind many of the jury's choices. "We were looking for images that stood out, astonished or showed us something we had never seen before. Pictures could be creative and artistic or they could show some interesting behavior (in the wildlife categories)."
#6 2nd Place In The Category Of Underwater: "Beauty And The Beast" By Kate Jonker
"As I was shallowing up after a 25-metre dive at Steenbras Deep in the centre of False Bay, South Africa I came across a small patch of Mediterranean mussels. This invasive species, brought to the waters off Cape Town in the bilge of passing ships in the 1980s, is a beast, replacing the colourful marine life on shallower sections of some reefs with dark patches.
Whilst I was investigating the impact these mussels were having on this particular section of reef, I found a beautiful Bluespotted klipfish (Pavoclinus caeruleopunctatus) perched amongst the mussel shells. He peered up at me cautiously, watching my attempts to battle the surge whilst photographing him with a shallow depth of field. My aim was to capture his beauty whilst softening the sharp edges of the mussels. A challenge not only due to the limited dive time I had remaining, but because of the surge that was washing me to and fro whilst I tried to focus on his eye."
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56points
#7 3rd Place In The Category Of Plants: "Sun Worshippers" By Henrik Spranz
"Three greater pasque flowers (Pulsatilla grandis) right after sunrise in early spring near Vienna – with Sahara dust in the air. It's a rare occasion and always gives an unreal light condition."
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55points
The overall winner of CUPOTY 2022 won a £2,500 (~$3,000) cash prize! Each of the 10 category winners received £300. The Young Close-up Photographer of the Year for those under 18 received a SIGMA 105mm F2.8 DG DN MACRO | Art lens and USB Dock. More information can be found here.
#8 3rd Place In The Category Of Butterflies And Dragonflies: "Common Winter Damselfly" By Kai Rösler
"This picture was taken in July, in a small nature reserve close to the town of Fribourg, Switzerland. The damselfly was sitting on a blade of grass, but flew away when I slowly approached, eventually placing itself on the tip of these grass spikelets. I managed to take some shots, trying to align my camera with the body of the damselfly. The constant moving of the grass caused by the wind and the insect’s movements made things tricky, but after a few seconds, despite the damselfly flying off, I had my shot."
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55points
#9 3rd Place In The Category Of Fungi: "Slime Mould Didymium Squamulosum On Holly Leaf" By Andy Sands
"Many happy hours in winter can be spent crawling around under a holly tree searching for slime moulds. This tiny slime mould, around 1mm tall, often grows in leaf litter. These three were found growing along the edge of a holly leaf in a Hertfordshire woodland in January.
The challenge photographing slime moulds such as these is their tiny size. I used my 60mm Macro lens with three extension tubes mounted between the lens and camera to achieve the required magnification. I then used focus bracketing to take a series of images in natural light, 28 in total, and combined them in post production at home using Zerene Stacker."
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50points
"The competition is open to absolutely everyone from anywhere in the world. We had entries from 54 countries this year, from hobby photographers, professionals, scientists, microscopists, artists and conservationists."
So, if you're interested in participating, CUPOTY 05 will open for entries in March 2023!
#10 3rd Place In The Category Of Animals: "A Tale In The Sand" By Paul Lennart Schmid
"After three luckless attempts of searching for Sahara sand vipers (Cerastes Vipera) in rainy conditions, we finally had a dry day and night that brought us success. We followed the tracks of this snake for over a hundred meters through the dunes of the Negev desert in Israel. At times, our eyes were almost directly over the sand so as not to lose the trail. We even saw that it had crossed our foot tracks from earlier in the night. After quite a while we finally found this specimen digging itself into the sand to get into an ambush position, right next to the tracks of a dune gecko (Stenodactylus petrii) that had turned around at the right moment before becoming a meal."
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49points
#11 1st Place In The Category Of Insects: "Intruder" By Anirban Dutta
"Before the start of the monsoon every year, some species of termite swarm in the late afternoon and early evening – this behavior is known as nuptial flight. One day I witnessed this event near a petrol pump in the town of Cooch Behar, India. There were thousands of termites drawn to the powerful street light and one black drongo. This bird spent almost 20 minutes swooping through the termites, snatching and eating them as it went.
I shot multiple exposures to capture this event, which I had never seen before. Three frames were recorded and combined in the camera. The first one with a high shutter speed and in Kelvin white balance, the second with a high shutter speed isolating the drongo and the third with a slow shutter speed in Tungsten white balance."
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46points
#12 2nd Place In The Category Of Intimate Landscape: "Artwork Of Nature II" By Klaus Axelsen
"A July capture from Marmorslottet in Nordland, Norway. The rock formations and the water flowing through it invited an intimate capture of the details and structures of these unique rock formations and potholes."
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46points
#13 1st Place In The Category Of Plants: "Next To My Tree" By Sébastien Blomme
"Snake’s-head fritillary is one of my favorite flowers. This one was taken in the city of Toulouse, France. It usually grows on wet meadows but can also be found in forests. In this image, I wanted to introduce some context, but keep the flower as the center of interest. I managed to get a tree in the background and decided to keep it out of focus so that its shape is only suggested."
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43points
#14 1st Place In The Category Of Underwater: "Little Predator" By Viktor Lyagushkin
"This is a Lucernaria quadricornis (Stauromedusae), a stalked jellyfish, photographed beneath the ice of the White Sea in Russia – the only freezing sea in Europe. The green colour of the water is a sign of spring as algae grows.
The 'leg' of the jellyfish helps it to attach to a stone or seaweed. Its tentacles project up or down, waiting for prey. If its hunt is successful, it catches the prey and collapses its tentacles into a fist. If the hunting site is no good, Lucernaria walks away on its “leg” or sometimes its 'hands'."
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43points
#15 1st Place In The Category Of Invertebrate Portrait: "Mayan Derriere" By Jamie Hall
"This Triangular Spider species (Arkys curtulus) is an ambush predator, not a web-based hunter like most. To hunt its prey, it sits compact and curled up on a leaf, mimicking bird poo or other bio-debris. Balanced abdomen-side down, eyes up, it looks to the sky and watches for an unsuspecting fly or other insect to wander onto the leaf. The abdomen on this species has some very pronounced and interesting markings, which reminded me of the Mayan carvings on rocks and stone. This individual was photographed in a conservation park in Brisbane, Australia."
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43points
#16 2nd Place In The Category Of Butterflies And Dragonflies: "Atlas Moth" By Uday Hegde
"This beautiful Atlas moth (Attacus atlas) was found during my daily walk in our areca nut plantation in Sirsi, India. As our plantation is surrounded by evergreen forest a lot of frogs, snakes, insects and butterflies take shelter there.
These huge moths often have a wingspan that extends beyond nine inches. I wanted to show the moth in its habitat, so I decided to shoot this picture with a wide-angle macro lens. I set-up the camera, tripod, flash and trigger away from the moth so that it would not get disturbed. Once I felt happy with the set-up I placed my camera near the moth, composed the frame and took 5-6 shots."
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42points
#17 3rd Place In The Category Of Intimate Landscape: "Sea In Fan" By Angelo Richardson
"The steady trade winds and the waves they produce, make the rugged northeast coast of the island of Aruba, in the Dutch Caribbean, a true beachcombers paradise. These sea fans are one of the most common jewels you can find there along the beach. I dipped one into the sea and photographed the waves crashing on the rocks through it. The tiny seawater lenses captured a different view of that same moment."
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40points
#18 1st Place In The Category Of Micro: "Batrachospermum Red Algae" By Marek Miś
"I took a sample of Batrachospermum (a kind of red algae) from a small river in Wigry National Park, Poland. Although it has natural beauty, it doesn’t look great using bright-field illumination. However, by combining polarised light and darkfield techniques I managed to get a colourful and interesting picture.
It was challenging to show more than one or two “twigs” of algae, because even a 4x microscope objective shows too small a part. To capture it properly, I made a panorama consisting of nine images stitched together during post-processing. To expand the depth of field, which is very shallow using a microscope, each of the nine images consist of several frames combined in one output image in Helicon Focus. The final image is the result of combining more than 100 separate shots."
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36points
#19 3rd Place In The Category Of Young: "Doner Kebab And Pizza" By Anton Trexler
"In Berlin there is a lot of urban wildlife, such as this population of starlings living at Alexanderplatz. When my photographer friend Richard Pohl and I tried some creative photography we noticed the birds eating the leftovers from humans. I positioned my wide-angle lens on the table and triggered the camera wireless when the starlings came close to it. With this picture I want to show the coexistence between human and nature and how interesting and diverse this relationship can be."
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35points
#20 2nd Place In The Category Of Plants: "Thawing Beauty" By Jay Birmingham
"I am fortunate enough to live near a location where snake’s head fritillaries grow natively. Broad Meadow, near Tamworth in the UK, floods regularly and creates the ideal conditions for these beautiful flowers. The flowers move easily in the wind, so I waited for a morning when there was no breeze. There had also been an overnight frost. This combined with the mist and rising sun, created some beautiful conditions for photography.
In order to maximize focus and make sure the flower stood out against the background, I shot wide open at f/2.8 using a 180mm macro lens. I then stacked a few images together where I had focused on different parts of the flower."
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34points