Sometimes, a moment is so fleeting or a scene is so small that not even the fiercest squint can capture it.
Thankfully, that’s where cameras—and the photographers that wield them—come in. Today, the winners and finalists of the fifth Close-up Photographer of the Year competition are revealed. Showcasing nature at its smaller scales, the awarded images—selected from nearly 12,000 entries—offer an intimate look at the animal kingdom, fungi, and the remarkable planet that we call home.
Here are the winning images from each of the 11 competition categories.
‘Wood Ants Firing Acid Secretion’
First place in the Insects category went to this shot of wood ants in the Netherlands, spraying acid toward the photographer.
‘The Wedding Guest’
First place in the Butterflies category went to this photo of an oak peacock moth on a window of a venue in Uzsa, Hungary. A wedding takes place inside.
‘Dune Wrestling’
The second-place photo in the Animals category was this shot of two toadhead agamas—a lizard species—wrestling one another as part of a territorial dispute. The photo was taken in Russia’s Chornye Zemli Nature Reserve.
‘The Bird of the Forest’
This photo took up 1st place in the Animals category and was the overall winner of the competition. It shows a Eurasian nuthatch flying through the forest. The photo was taken from inside a tree stump, giving the picture a mushroom-shaped frame.
‘Dicyrtomina Ornata’
Third place in the Young Close-up Photographer of the Year category went to this photo of a globular springtail, crawling through a forest in Brandenburg, Germany.
‘Comatricha Nigra’
The slime mould Comatricha nigra’s fruiting bodies look like something out of a Tim Burton film, in this shot taken by 16-year-old Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas. The photo took second place in the Young Close-up Photographer of the Year category.
‘Small Wanders’
This black-and-white photo shows a Moorish gecko’s hindleg and tail on a wall covered in magnesium crystals (bottom). The image won first place for Young Close-up Photographer of the Year and was taken by 17-year-old Carlos Pérel Naval.
‘Pinkaboo’
A golden damselfish is the only non-pink part of this photo, taken off the coast of Indonesia. The picture earned third place in the Underwater category.
‘Heart of the Sea’
Second place in the Underwater category went to this arresting shot of a lava moray eel, curling into a heart-like shape on a night dive off Romblon, in the Philippines.
‘Dreamtime’
A commensal shrimp floats above a mosaic sea star in Shellharbour, Australia. Without other means of understanding its scale, the shrimp almost looks like beluga whale, floating above an abstract seascape. The image won first place in the Underwater category.
‘Golden Agave’
Third place in the Plants category went to this serene view of the leaves on an agave plant in Arizona’s Desert Botanical Garden.
‘Tears in My Eyes’
This view of a sundew—a carnivorous plant—makes the flora almost look like a sea anemone. The photo won second place in the Plants category.
‘Reflexion’
This photo—reminiscent of a Monet painting—shows the blossoms of a magnolia tree reflected in a water body in the Netherlands’ Trompenburg Botanical Garden. It won first place in the Plants category.
‘Twisted Dandelion’
This very-up-close look at a dandelion won third place in the Micro category. The image was compiled from 200 individual exposures.
‘Amoeba’
This amoeba was collected from a pond near Drottningholm Castle in Stockholm, Sweden. Captured in 120 images that were consolidated into this shot that includes a view of its organelles, the amoeba took home second place in the Micro category.
‘Beach Grass’
The winner of the Micro category is this microscopic look at a cross-section of beach grass (Ammophila arenaria). The sample was stained to highlight the remarkable small-scale structures that make up the grass.
‘Dancing Sands Violin Crab’
A fiddler crab takes on a defensive position in the third-place photo in the Invertebrate Portrait category.
‘Orange Isopod’
This orange woodlouse is caught unfurling, in the second-place photo in the Invertebrate Portrait category.
‘Jumping Stick’
This adorable jumping stick is the first place winner in the Invertebrate Portrait category. “The best way to describe these invertebrates is part walking stick, part grasshopper,” said photographer Tibor Molnar, in a competition release. “When they jump, they are not particularly graceful, and they tend to tumble around completely off-balance.”
‘Circular Trenching Behavior by a Leaf Beetle’
Third place in the Insects category belongs to this neat photo of a leaf beetle within a circular hole it cut in a leaf, to safely eat the vegetation without consuming the plant’s toxins.
‘Mosquito Egg Raft’
A raft of mosquito eggs float on water in this shot, second place in the Insects category. It almost makes mosquitos (dare I say) a thing of beauty.
‘Ferro Field’
In this shot—third place in the Human Made category—a magnet creates a pattern on a ferrofluid.
‘Colour Study 51′
This image shows colored transparencies overlaid on one another, producing an abstract composition. “My goal is to blur the boundary between photography and art and reference painterly techniques of pointillism, colour fields, opaque and transparent layers, and collage,” said photographer Paul Gravett in a competition release.
‘Asymmetrical Threads’
This image won first place in the Human Made category; it consists of 64 exposures of colored threads, rotated on a platform.
‘Fungi and Fairy Dust’
Third place in the Fungi & Slime Moulds category went to this shot of fungi sprouting from the forest moss. The misty effect was added using a garden spray bottle, giving the image an mystical quality.
‘Autumn Emergence’
These furry-looking honey fungi were photographed in Warwickshire, in the United Kingdom. They took second place in the Fungi & Slime Moulds category.
‘The Ice Crown’
A slime mould sporting ice like a crown took home first place in the Fungi & Slime Moulds category. “During a previous attempt with another slime mould, my breath had melted the ice when I inadvertently got too close,” said photographer Barry Webb in a competition release.
‘Sunrise Beauty’
The bronze medal in the Butterflies category belongs to this shot of a dragonfly on a blade of grass, drying its wings. The dragonfly is illuminated by the morning sun in the background.
‘Letting Go’
Second place in the Butterflies category went to this photo of two four-spotted skimmer dragonflies releasing one another after mating. Steve Russell, the photographer, said in a competition release that capturing such a moment “is particularly difficult because they connect and mate in-flight without any warning and for only a few seconds.”
‘Natural Architecture’
The third-place photograph in the Animals category shows a sac spider within its web, woven into a loop in a blade of grass.
‘The Sorcerors Apprentice’
You’d be forgiven for thinking this image is of a mountain range of a group of valleys, taken from high in the air. It’s actually frozen mud, in a dried-up lake bed in Oregon. The photo took third place in the Intimate Landscape category.
‘Ice Fossiel’
This gorgeous photo took second place in the Intimate Landscape Category. It shows a stick, trapped in a block of ice.
‘Undertow’
The first place photo in the Intimate Landscape category is this shot of a water violet’s leaves in a canal. The shadow is created by a fallen tree over the water.