Close-Up Photographer of the Yearstarted life back in 2018 as founders Tracy Calder and Daniel Calder set out to put close-up, macro and micro photography at the centre stage.
Fast-forward a few years and now the competition has had 9,000 photos submitted from 54 different countries around the globe.
Those images cover 11 different categories including everything from insects to fungi, plants, landscapes and more.
The thousands of images have been whittled down to 100 winners and finalists and as you can imagine, these are some of the best close-up images you’re likely to see.
We’ve collated some of them for your enjoyment, but if you’d like to see the full collection, then head over here totake a look at all the winners.
Overall winner
Nature’s Pitfall
This photo bySamantha Stephensfrom Canada was selected as the overall winner for the Close-Up Photographer of the Year 2022 competition and shows an unusual sight - two Spotted Salamanders that have fallen prey to a carnivorous plant.
Samantha explained more about what we’re seeing:
“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 their roots, this plant relies on trapping prey in its specialised 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 a vertebrate prey. For a plant that’s used to capturing tiny invertebrate, 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.”
Beauty of Decay
This is one of the finalists for the butterflies & dragonflies category taken by German Physician and photographerChristopher Penker. It shows a wonderfully contrasting view of a colourful butterfly among the dead and dying foliage:
“I took this photo during a multi-day tour through the world famous Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica. In addition to the many living animals, there are details in nature that are beautiful but no longer part of the living world. An example here is this beautiful skeleton of a morpho butterfly, whose deep blue wings are still iridescent on the ground among the brown foliage.”
Ice Encrusted Comatricha
The winner of the Fungi category is this impressive photo taken in the depths of a British winter showing a slime mold growing on a discarded piece of wood.
Gardener and photographerBarry Webbtold the story of how this came about:
“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.”
Scarlet Waxcap in Early Morning Dew
It is these sorts of images that really show the beauty of nature from a close-up perspective. Who knew that a mushroom surrounded by dew could be so beautiful?Jeremy Lintottapparently. His image was chosen as the second place in the fungi category:
“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.”
Fields Of Dreams
At first glance this photo is so intriguingly other-worldly it could easily have been mistaken for one of NASA’s photographs of Mars. The awesome colourful wavy lines reminding us of alien dunes. In reality though it’s a mushroom, as photographerJ Fritz Rumpfexplains:
“Arizona, USA, might not be a place you expect to find mushrooms, but during heavy monsoon seasons, there is an abundance of them, especially in the mountain areas.
On one of my first wild mushroom foraging outings in the Arizona White Mountains last fall, I picked up this mushroom, and since it was not one of the two varieties I was certain were edible, I put it back on the ground. Luckily it ended with the gills side up, and I noticed the incredibly beautiful colours, textures and patterns. I used the back of my photo bag as a base, and did several photo stacks.
As the photo was taken in the forest on an overcast day, I used a LumeCube to highlight the otherworldly colours and patterns of the gills. It also ended up being a good reminder to not miss the hidden details that are all around us.”
Wrinkled Peach Juiced Up
This one is a close-up photo of an endangered species of mushroom. Apparently a rare sight and certainly an interesting one thanks to the blobs of water hanging from its side.
PhotographerJamie Hallexplains more:
“The Wrinkled Peach Mushroom (Rhodotus) is classified on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species as an endangered mushroom species due to the reduction of elm and ash wood caused by fungal diseases and removal of dead woods. In the UK they are illegal to pick or destroy. A rare sight and a huge wishlist encounter for any fungi enthusiast. This was found in a London Park in 2021.
These mushrooms are deceptively small. The ones pictured in this image are only 1-2cm in height at most. The syrupy looking liquid dripping from the mushroom is called guttation, which is the mushroom purging excess water from its fruiting body as it grows. Because of the pigment in this fungi, the guttation is a vibrant orange colour.”
Aerial Assassin
We’re always impressed by these macro photos of insects. Close-up imagery revealing views you’d never normally see including the tiniest details on minuscule creatures. This image byRory Willswas selected as one of the finalists in the insects category and it’s easy to see why.
“After a long day of work, I was out on a little summer walk around the suburbs of Guelph, Ontario with my camera looking for interesting insects. I was ecstatic to come across this scene along an overgrown fence line at the edge of the neighbourhood. This is a small robber fly (Asilidae) with a small beetle it has claimed as prey.
Robber flies are incredible predators, armed with a sharp proboscis, immobilizing venom, large compound eyes to locate prey and wings to manoeuvre through the air. I was amazed at this small fly’s ability to pierce right through the hard protective elytra of the beetle.
While these flies are typically quite fast and skittish, the combination of the dwindling light and tasty meal allowed me to capture this scene. While the macro lens may make these subjects look massive, the fly was only about 10mm long. I feel like this scene highlights some of the incredible arthropod biodiversity that can be where you least expect it, such as an overgrown fence line in the suburbs of a city.”
The winner of the intimate landscape category is another intriguing view that doesn’t look like it belongs on our planet. Yet it’s just simply a reflection in some water. This image byMike Curryis proof that close-up photography can really change your perspective of the world.
“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!”
Artwork of Nature II
From Norway comes this photo byKlaus Axelsenwhich was another of the finalists in the Intimate Landscape category. Here the water has seemingly turned into a fine smoke and draws the eye in intriguing ways.
“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.”
