The winning pictures from the Close-up Photographer of the Year 2023 competition include captivating pictures of ants spewing acid, a prawn floating above a mosaic sea star with colors ranging from rainbow to purple, and a butterfly peeking in during a wedding celebration.
In its fifth year, the competition honors macro and micro photography to reveal the hidden treasures of the natural world, ranging from magnificent creatures to minute fungi. Macro refers to taking close-up pictures of bigger topics, whereas micro is used to take pictures of microscopic items that need to be magnified.
The competition’s co-founder and jury member Tracy Calder told CNN that the images show odd relationships between plants and animals, illustrating how everything in the natural world is interdependent and interrelated.” It honors creatures and actions that people have never witnessed or experienced previously,” said the speaker.
Csaba Daróczi, a Hungarian photographer, won this year’s main prize for his black and white portrait of a Eurasian nuthatch soaring through a woodland. The remarkable photo, which was taken with a GoPro from within a hollowed-out tree stump, provides a fresh look at the bird against the background of trees that are reaching out.
Carlos Pérez Naval, a 17-year-old Spanish photographer, won the title of young close-up photographer of the year for his picture of a Moorish gecko on a wall coated with pyrolusite crystals. According to a press release, “These magnesium minerals create stunning formations that look just like petrified trees, but they are tricky to spot because they are so small.”
For a long time, I wanted to photograph a gecko in the “petrified forest,” but they didn’t seem to be in my hamlet until lately. They may have come in fruit baskets from hotter regions. They can now survive here because of climate change,” he continued.
The winning images for each category were selected by the jury, which consisted of 23 photographers, scientists, and naturalists, out of 12,000 entries from 67 different nations. Many of them, according to Calder, were shot in the photographers’ hometowns and showcase the beauty of what’s right outside your door.
In 2018, she and her spouse, Daniel, established the contest. They are both employed as professional photographers. Even though there are close-up categories in many other photo contests, they felt that a whole competition devoted to macro and micro photography was necessary.
People are frequently more likely to support conservation initiatives that highlight ‘cute’ or more visible creatures and flora, such as pandas, orchids, and rhinos. However, the lesser-known critters and plants that we sometimes disregard as weeds are vital to maintaining the delicate equilibrium. These flora and animals are frequently included in close-up photographs, the speaker noted.
Showing folks something they couldn’t see without a macro lens or microscope is also enjoyable. Numerous animals and plants that we display are present all around us but are rarely acknowledged. They can become discovered through the competition, she continued.
