The top 100 winners of Close-up Photographer of the Year 03 (2021) or CUPOTY 03 are now featured on its website showing the winners gallery.
The Close-up Photographer of the Year website was the brainchild of husband-and-wife duo Tracy and Dan Calder of Winchester, UK. They wanted to put close-up, macro and micro photography on the center stage and be celebrated in its own right.
Tracy, a former editor of Outdoor Photography and a features editor at Amateur Photography, has over 20 years experience in the photo magazine industry. She’s also a photography instructor at West Dean College in Sussex, and an author of Close-up & Macro Photography, which has been translated into French and Chinese. Dan is a contributor to Black + White Photography magazine.
This year’s Close-up Photographer of the Year (CUPOTY 03) has more than 9000 photos from 55 countries across nine different categories. These categories are insects, animals, plants and fungi, underwater, butterflies and dragonflies, intimate landscape, manmade, micro, and young.
From each category, the top three winners were chosen alongside with the other finalists. Here are the top three winners per category.
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Insects
Winner - Pål Hermansen | Insect Diversity
‘In the autumn of 2020, I discovered that one of the lamps on my house in Norway had a defect and had acted as a light trap for insects. I emptied the lamp and spread the contents onto a large light-table I had left over from my slide days. I used a weak flashlight to light the details from above. I wanted to express the chaos and diversity of this discovery, but also to find some kind of composition. To me, it’s a visual reminder of the important and extreme diversity of animals around us that we take for granted.’
2nd Place - Petr Bambousek | Ants and Hornet
‘Liometopum ants live in large colonies on huge trees and feed on many different types of food. In the picture you can see how the group of ants work together in hunting the hornet. I used single diffused flash to light the scene and slightly cropped the image to take the viewer into the heart of the action. This interesting behaviour was discovered during a night walk in the extensive park of Lednice Castle, Czech Republic.’
3rd Place - Bernhard Schubert | Magic Spores
‘I observed and captured this scene during a night hike in the tropics of Borneo. A bracket fungus releases masses of spores which causes the refraction of light, while a cockroach feeds. I never observed this phenomenon before and I was compelled to capture it in its entire beauty.’
Animals
Winner - Juan J. González Ahumada | Dancing in the Dark
‘This opilione (harvestman or daddy long legs) moves along a dry branch in a small hollow created by a landslip on the hillside of Sierra Blanca, Andalusia. These creatures are blind and use their front legs to guide themselves in the dark. With little space to move, I managed to light the subject from behind and used a 20 second exposure to capture the movement of its long legs.’
2nd Place - Svetlana Ivanenko | Fight
‘During spring these Secret toadhead agamas battle over territory. It is difficult to capture these short and intense conflicts. The temperature in Kalmykia, Russia doesn’t help either, as it often rises above 30 °C.’
3rd Place - Lili Sztrehárszki | Tiny Details
‘I took my picture on the last day of winter in 2020, in an abandoned mine of Börzsöny Hills in Hungary. Although it’s permanently closed to visitors for the protection of its inhabitants, I was allowed to enter accompanied by a professional guide.
The photo shows the smallest horseshoe bat in Europe, the lesser horseshoe bat. Composing the picture in the silent darkness I only used a single flashlight with great care trying not to disturb the hibernating mammal. I attempted to frame the picture to highlight the delicate feet of the bat as it hung upside-down, clinging to the rock with its tiny fingers and claws, using special locking tendons. The backlight emphasises the veins under the thin skin and the light hair on the tiny feet.
The lesser horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hipposideros) can be found in several abandoned mines of Börzsöny Hills, but the population is decreasing throughout Europe. The species is currently considered endangered.’
Plants and Fungi
Winner - Barry Webb | Holly Parachute
‘Last December, while cutting the hedge in my garden, I spotted what I thought were slime moulds, growing on this dead holly leaf. On closer inspection, I noticed amazing spikes coming out of the cap of these small, rare, Holly Parachute fungi, Marasmius hudsonii.
I took the holly leaf into my greenhouse, out of the wind, and then spent some time carefully arranging moss behind, to create a pleasant background. I deliberately chose a composition using the pointed edges of the holly leaf as a frame and to echo the spikes of the little fungi.
This is a 42 shot focus stack, combined in Zerene Stacker.’
2nd Place - Andy Sands | Cup Fungi Lachnum Niveum
3rd Place - Paula Cooper | Dill Seed Heads
‘This is a wet cyanotype, which uses the sun to expose chemicals on paper. Dill seed heads grown in my garden were placed on top of the treated paper, followed by bubbles of soap suds, some red wine vinegar and salt. This was then covered with glass and placed outside to expose. Once I was happy with the exposure I washed the paper off and immediately photographed it while the paper was still wet and the colours were strong.
I love the way every single wet cyanotype comes out uniquely as everything reacts differently depending on the weather, the chemicals from the plants, how translucent they are and whatever else is added.’
Underwater
Winner - Alessandro Grasso | Circular Octopus
‘In the past three years, the bacterium Mycobacterium sherrisii has caused the mass death of Pinna nobilis (Noble Pen Shell) throughout the Mediterranean Sea. Most of the empty shells of the large bivalve have been colonised by other marine species. In this case, an octopus takes advantage of the large shell to create its den and protect itself from predators. I used a slow shutter speed and circular panning motion to give dynamism to the image and emphasise the subject.’
2nd Place - Filippo Borghi | The Birth
‘The result of this image comes from over three years of commitment in trying to capture the moment of the birth of a Mediterranean catfish. During this long period I tried every year to follow the development of the eggs up to the final birth. Every year I arrived too early or too late, despite searching in different areas and depths around Giglio Island, Italy. Finally my perseverance paid off and I captured this absolutely unique moment.’
3rd Place - Enrico Somogyi | Gobies with Eggs
‘This picture was taken in Anilao, Phillippines in 2017. A pair of gobies are sitting on a whip coral protecting their eggs. For the bubble bokeh I used a manual Meyer Optik Trioplan Lens, which is famous for this effect.’
Butterflies and Dragonflies
Winner - Ripan Biswas | Mating Underwater
‘For some species of damselfly, egg laying is a difficult task. They lay eggs on submerged vegetation so their eggs don’t get exposed in the air. The female climbs down deep in the water while the male clasps the neck of the female with a special organ on the tip of its tail. This is a difficult time for the pair as they become vulnerable to predators.
As I put my camera just above the water to start taking shots, a water strider came close to the pair in search of food. After inspecting the mating pair, he decided they would not make a good meal. I managed to take 2 or 3 shots before the water strider departed. The damselflies flew away after successfully laying their eggs.’
2nd Place - Andrew Fusek Peters | Painted Lady in the Garden
‘I had just had my cancer diagnosis in the autumn of 2019. I was waiting for surgery and could not go far so spent a lot of time in our garden. It was a wonderful late summer and lots of butterflies came to nectar on my wife’s flowers, including Verbena bonariensis. I had just started shooting with the Olympus camera system and began to wonder if it might be possible to photograph butterflies in flight. Sports action sequences were my inspiration. If I got a set of shots at 60 frames per second, with the butterfly taking off in the plane of focus, set at the first shot, I thought they might make up an action sequence, a sort of time lapse in a single frame to show motion but also movement through a fraction of a second.
This was my first decent sequence, with four good Raw files from the moment the painted lady took off until it left the frame. The photos were layer masked in Photoshop to produce this composite. The result inspired me to really develop my butterfly in flight shots but this was the beginning point, a close up wonder revealing the painted lady in all its aerial glory.’
3rd Place - Aniket Rangnath Thopate | Damsel in Dinner
‘Last year (2020), near my home in Badlapur, India, my friends and I were walking through the pools of water formed by the monsoon and found this dead damselfly floating on the surface. I had never seen this arrangement of its four wings before with the beautiful droplets on them.
While shooting this on a 1:1 scale, I saw a movement near its head and spotted the nymph of a water strider, which added a tiny spot of intense colour.
I stayed in four feet of water for almost an hour watching the scene and capturing the image. I wonder sometimes, how nature comes up with such beautiful things.’
Intimate Landscape
Winner - Daragh Muldowney | Juncture Y
‘This was shot on Lake Baikal in Siberia in February 2019 as part of my most recent collection Beacons. I have had a fascination with ice for many years now and this led me to explore Lake Baikal. I am inspired by form and composition in nature – beautiful lines, textures or shapes that become a work of art when you look closely or compose in a particular way. I love the intersecting lines in this small feathery crack in the ice. I processed this in a way to help the detail of this exquisite crack to stand out from the depths below.’
2nd Place - David Southern | Chasm
3rd Place - Jakub Ondruch | Decay
This image of decayed organic matter was shot during an afternoon walk in a nature reserve close to our flat in Chrudim, Czech Republic. I was pretty lucky on that day as the sky was perfectly overcast, which painted my scene blue. I revisited the place on different days and never experienced such a vibrant reflection again.
Manmade
Winner - Rachel McNulty | Waves Crashing
‘At the start of the UK lockdown last year (2020) I embarked on a home-based project to create abstract seascapes using colourful glass bottles, a macro lens and natural daylight. This was all done from my dining room table, with the sunlight enhancing the colours and casting incredible reflections within the bottles. When I looked through the viewfinder I suddenly saw waves crashing on a beach, storm clouds out to sea or dramatic sunsets. No two images will ever be the same, the light changes, the position of the bottle moves, the reflections shift just like a real seascape constantly alters.
This image was created from a close-up section of a turquoise blue gin bottle to create the stormy sky and sea. The light reflecting off the bottle appears as waves crashing on a beach and a small foil reflector was used to enhance the yellow sand.’
2nd Place - Bruno Militelli | Delusion
‘A soap bubble lasts mere seconds before it bursts and returns to its original form. This image seeks not only to portray the ephemeral life of an apparent common physical phenomenon, but to also show the most diverse colours and mesmerising patterns. The psychedelic effect contained in the movement of water and soap captured against the light continually feeds my imagination.’
3rd Place - Elizabeth Kazda | Combs in Colour Silhouette
‘I strive to invent new ways to photograph my subjects. For example, an ordinary comb is an object most of us take for granted. I wanted to photograph it in a way that would highlight the great lines of this everyday object.
I placed three combs on a light-pad with the camera in multiple exposure mode and photographed them in silhouette. Next, I moved the camera to another position and photographed the combs with colour gels underneath. I repeated this eight times. Each exposure overlaps in different areas creating unique design patterns within the body of the silhouette. I used an in-camera multiple exposure of 10 frames.
I have been developing new techniques with in-camera multiple exposure for close-up/macro photography for the last two years.’
Micro
Winner - Håkan Kvarnström | Spiral Beauty
‘This green algae Spirogyra has one of the most fascinating chloroplast shapes of all algae – a helical shape, or spiral. Spirogyras thrive in almost any freshwater environment and are a common species that is easy to find in shallow ponds, ditches and lakes.
For this photograph I stained some of the Spirogyra strands with a number of fluorescent dyes to highlight the spirally shaped chloroplasts. They were then mixed with natural strands and placed next to each other on a glass slide and photographed in fluorescent light.’
2nd Place - Don Komarechka | Heaven and Earth
‘A micrometeorite positioned on top of an equally minuscule faceted garnet. These elements are smaller than most grains of sand, measuring 1/3 to 1/2 of a millimetre in diameter. Photographing subjects at this small scale requires hundreds of images in focus stacking efforts at high magnification. The lighting is also a challenge – achieving reflected light off the micrometeorite while seeing transmitted light through the garnet required significant experimentation.’
3rd Place - Marek Miś | Odd Air Bubbles Formed Between Slide and Cover Slip
‘These odd air bubbles were created in a drying and crystallising callus remover that has been smeared on a slide and covered with a cover slip. Callus remover is one of my favourite agents for taking micrographs. It can create unusual crystalline forms. This time I found on the slide these interesting air bubbles before the callus remover started to crystallise. The shapes and arrangement of the bubbles reminded me of underwater forms.
I decided to create a small panorama as one frame wouldn’t do it justice. Three separate frames partially overlapping are stitched together in Photo Shop Elements 10.’
Young
Winner - Ezra Boulton | Rat in Tyre Hub
‘I noticed this rat peering out of an abandoned car wheel in a farmyard near my home in Cornwall, England. It was framed so pleasingly by the concentric circles of the tyre that I came back the next morning with my camera in the hope of capturing the moment. I like how the rat’s beady eyes echo the holes in the wheel.’
2nd Place - Sudith Rodrigo | Colours Through Spider’s Eye
‘I shot this photo in my home garden during the Covid-19 lockdown that was imposed in Sri Lanka. Since there was nothing much to do or anywhere to go, I started to garden in my backyard and focused on my macro photography.
When I was planting one day, I saw a spider web in a winged bean plant. I ran into my house to grab my camera and tried to capture a photo. But it was not easy since the spider kept moving and it was hard to focus with the extension tube attached.
I like the colour combination of green, yellow and gold in this picture. The golden colour is from the sunlight coming through a tiny hole in the plant leaf. I angled it slightly to bounce the light off the spider’s web.’
3rd Place - Anton Trexler | Hidden
‘Agricultural areas like this do not seem very lively. The hare, which I almost ran past, is very well camouflaged here. Due to his natural instinct, he will lie down as soon as danger arises. So I discovered him, quite unexpectedly, five metres away from me. Lying on the floor, I was able to catch the hare in its agricultural environment and show how animals can survive in manmade habitats.’
The other finalists can be seen from The Top 100 of CUPOTY’s website.
Images: CUPOTY