Close-Up Photographer Of The Year 2022 Has Been Announced, And Here Are 33 Photos That Took Home The Top Honors

"A common snail on a blade of grass, taken with a flash, so that the detail can be seen nicely against a dark background."

"The wing of the damselfly is incredibly detailed and delicate. The banded demoiselle (Calopteryx splendens) males have dark coloured bands on their wings, which I decided to try and photograph on my trip to the New Forest, Hampshire back in June. After finding a stunning male individual I set my lens to 2x magnification to get as close as possible and took the shot. You can see the drops of dew on the wing as the image was taken very early in the morning. I then left the demoiselle to dry off and warm up in the early morning sun."

"Arriving early on a beautiful misty morning to meet a fellow enthusiast for a day of fungi photography at Ebernoe Woods last October, I spotted a large number of waxcaps growing around the periphery of a nearby cricket pitch. The whole area was covered in spider webs and early morning dew creating an ethereal scene. Using a small beanbag to rest my camera at ground level I took a series of 12 focus-bracketed images at a wide aperture. This enabled me to achieve maximum detail in the waxcap whilst maintaining the soft back- and foreground."

"I am fascinated by the Schistidium mosses. The intricate capsules look like tiny flowers when viewed up close. With the peristome teeth extended, the capsule is only about 1mm wide, yet from afar the mosses often give a drab blackish impression. They thrive on exposed surfaces such as rocks on the shoreline or forest edge and persist unnoticed on concrete slabs in city locations. I picked this one up from a concrete foundation close to where I live in Ulleråker, Sweden and shot it in my living room. By combining long exposures with a flash I could create some ambience and not just a black background."

"I was walking through my local woodland, inspecting rotten logs and sticks last winter, when I came across a log covered in slime mould fruiting bodies or sporangia. I set up my camera gear and focused on a small cluster amongst the moss."

"As this pond dried up near Monda, Spain, hundreds of miniature toads, barely a centimeter in size began to wander around seeking refuge. A pair of them found safety in the huge paw print of a mastiff that was left in the mud when it came to quench its thirst at the water’s edge."

"This picture was captured as two drops of oil were merging. I’m intrigued by polarity and experimenting with oil and water has become a rich source of abstract expression. The symbiotic relationship that evolves from naturally opposing elements has become metaphoric for me. I am constantly learning and finding new inspiration, as I watch and continue to be fascinated by the dance that plays out through a macro lens."

"This ground beetle Carabus germari is locally common in forests of Italy and Slovenia. The species is mostly active during the night, but when sexually active the beetles can also be found running or foraging during the daytime. I found this beetle running along a small forest road one hot July evening in Boca de Piombo, Albaville, Italy.

I have taken several hundred images of running ground beetles over the years, but it is extremely difficult to get a decent image. The beetle often moves in several directions while he runs: his body moves up and down and often from left to right or vice versa… Moreover, it is very difficult to keep the beetle in focus while following him with a macro lens that has a very small depth of field.

In this instance, I noticed that the beetle was running through sunny patches every so often. I knew this could have the same effect as a fill-in flash, but with the beautiful, natural colors of the evening light. My aim was to have an image showing enough movement to illustrate the speed of the beetle while illustrating the elegance of the beetle with its superb violet and turquoise colors. Much to my surprise one image came close to what I had in mind!"

"In this fluorescence microphotograph, you can see yellow pollen tubes growing through the blue pistil of Arabidopsis thaliana (Thale cress) to fertilise the eggs. This sample was chemically cleared, so the plant tissues become partially transparent, and the pollen tubes growing inside the pistil can be seen."

"I found this dew-covered male Banded Demoiselle on a reed stem among the streams near my hometown, Ede in the Netherlands. Banded Demoiselles are easy to approach as they rest and dry in the early morning. I tried to find an angle that would produce bokeh bubbles in the warm light, creating the atmosphere that I desired in the picture.

I like to emphasise the beauty of these insects by showing their strength and vulnerability. I’m not after a record shot, more an emotional portrait – maybe this is due to my background as a portrait photographer."

"It was early autumn as a friend and I were exploring the rainforest creeks of the Australian Sunshine Coast Hinterland by night when we stumbled upon this remarkable scene. Emerging from the abdomen of a fire back huntsman spider was this long cylindrical worm. I had read about these horrific creatures before, but this was the first time I had witnessed a Gordian Worm.

Named after the impossible knots they form when out of water, these parasitic worms thankfully only infect invertebrates. After hatching, their microscopic larvae swim free in water and are ingested by drinking insects. They grow inside the stomach of the insect until they move through the stomach lining and begin devouring the non-vital organs of its victim. Reaching maturity, the worm releases a mind controlling agent, forcing its now zombie like host to walk to water where it bursts through the abdomen and drops into the water to complete its life cycle."

"Many landscape photographers with an interest in manmade and abstract subjects will know of Dungeness on the Kent Coast, UK. It was there that I came across this bundle of fishing nets. The striking blue colour initially drew me to this composition. But as I looked more closely the S-shape coming out of the lighter blue net convinced me to set-up my large-format Ebony camera and capture a couple of frames of Velvia 50."

"Despite their painterly appearances, each Colour Study starts with a camera and a series of photographs of papers and colour acetates, layered three to five deep on a stack of glass shelves. The images are layered and blended in the computer to create abstractions that reference contemporary art, including pointillism, colour fields, transparencies, collage, and painterly techniques. The hallmark of this experimental process is unpredictability and discovery, leading to startling and unexpected images that blur the boundary of photography and contemporary art, and trick the eye and test our assumptions about photography."