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The winners of the seventh edition of the Close-up Photography of the Year (CUPOTY) contest have been announced. This year's competition drew more than 12,000 entries from 63 countries, with images revealing wonders of the world through macro, micro and close-up photography.
A jury of 22 expert photographers, naturalists and editors selected the winners. They collectively spent more than 20 hours on Zoom calls to make the winner selections and choose the Top 100 images. The contest includes 11 categories: Animals, Insects, Butterflies & Dragonflies, Arachnids, Invertebrate Portrait, Underwater, Plants, Fungi & Slime Moulds, Intimate Landscape, Studio Art, and Young Close-up Photographer of the Year (for entrants aged 17 or under).
"This was the toughest competition yet," says CUPOTY co-founder Tracy Calder. "The winning image embodies everything close-up photography can achieve – it shows us a perspective we've never seen before and reveals hidden beauty in a familiar subject. The judges were captivated."
You can see all of the winning and finalist images at the CUPOTY website.
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© Ross Gudgeon / CUPOTY
Name: Ross Gudgeon
Title: Fractal Forest
Category: Underwater
Place: 1st
Nationality: Australian
Picture details: The inside of a cauliflower soft coral in Lembeh Strait, Indonesia.
Caption: Named for its characteristic cauliflower-like appearance, this coral has numerous small, rounded, bump-like polyps that give it a puffy texture. This unique perspective was made possible by the Nauticam EMWL (Extended Macro Wide Lens), an underwater version of the probe or insect eye lens. Due to its long length, small diameter, close focus, and wide field of view, this lens allows for perspectives impossible with conventional lenses. I decided to experiment with the EMWL on the soft coral to capture a different view of a common life form. I carefully threaded the end of the EMWL through the branches of the soft coral so as not to damage them, creating an image looking from the inside out.
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Further information:
Instagram: @ross_gudgeon
Facebook: Ross Gudgeon
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© Filippo Carugati / CUPOTY
Name: Filippo Carugati
Title: Amphibian Galaxy
Category: Animals
Place: 1st
Nationality: Italian
Picture details: A Malagasy frog (Guibemantis sp.) egg clutch hangs on a small trunk next to a pond in Maromizaha rainforest, Madagascar.
Caption: Conducting fieldwork during cyclone season gave me the opportunity to witness a wonderful natural spectacle: Malagasy frogs' mass reproduction. The Maromizaha rainforest, where I spent six months collecting data for my PhD thesis, hosts an outstanding richness of amphibians, with at least 74 endemic species. For many Malagasy frogs, reproduction peaks correspond with winter months, a period characterised by higher temperatures and intense rainfall. During my nocturnal explorations, I was deeply impressed by the variability in shapes, colours, and sizes of the numerous egg clutches deposited on leaves, branches, and trunks. In this shot, I documented a large egg clutch (20–30cm) hanging on a small trunk. Inside this egg aggregation, several tadpoles were swimming peacefully through the gelatinous substance. Using an external remote-controlled flash, I lit the subject from behind, enhancing the shapes of the converging tadpoles and the colourful mixture within the gelatine, which suggested a cosmic appearance.
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Further information:
Website: www.filippocarugatiphotographer.com
Instagram: @wildlais
Facebook: Filippo Carugati - Wildlife Photographer
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© Artur Tomaszek / CUPOTY
Name: Artur Tomaszek
Title: Dinner
Category: Arachnids
Place: 1st
Nationality: Polish
Picture details: A lynx spider (Oxyopes sp.) feeds on a few termites in Hong Kong.
Caption: Lynx spiders are ambush predators that actively hunt prey by sight. Though they produce and use silk, they do not build webs to capture prey. I came across this one during a moth survey on a particularly memorable night. It had been a very hot spring with little rain, but that evening it suddenly started raining, prompting thousands of termites to begin their mating dance and swarm in the air. This provided an excellent opportunity for the lynx spider to make its catch of the night. The main difficulty in capturing the picture was the thousands of termites flying in my face, attracted by the camera's flash. In the end, the spider managed to catch two or three termites at once, creating this striking scene.
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Further information:
Website: www.arturtomaszek.com
Instagram: @artur.tomaszek.photo
Facebook: Inglourious Reptiles
Flickr: Artur Tomaszek
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© Pål Hermansen / CUPOTY
Name: Pål Hermansen
Title: Butterfly Flash
Category: Butterflies & Dragonflies
Place: 1st
Nationality: Norwegian
Picture details: A Camberwell beauty (Nymphalis antiopa) flashes its wings to defend its feeding spot on a birch tree trunk in Follo, Norway.
Caption: The butterfly was sitting on a birch tree trunk, drawn by the leaking sap caused by an attack of goat moth (Cossus cossus) larvae. Some red admiral butterflies and wasps were also attracted to the sweet sap. When the wasps approached, the Camberwell beauty did not fly off, but instead defended the spot by suddenly flashing its wings several times. The other insects kept their distance, allowing it to spend sufficient time feeding undisturbed.
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Further information:
Website: www.palhermansen.com
Instagram: @hermansenpal
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© Valeria Zvereva / CUPOTY
Name: Valeria Zvereva
Title: Mushroom in the 'Nude' Style
Category: Fungi & Slime Moulds
Place: 1st
Nationality: Russian
Picture details: Fragment of the lower part of the cap of a lamellar mushroom in the Moscow region, Russia.
Caption: The lower part of the cap of a lamellar mushroom. After all, there is something of the "nude" style in this.
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Instagram: @zebrav1
Facebook: Valeriya Zvereva
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© Imre Potyó / CUPOTY
Name: Imre Potyó
Title: Blue Army
Category: Insects
Place: 1st
Nationality: Hungarian
Picture details: Danube mayflies (Ephoron virgo) swarm in Szentendre, Hungary.
Caption: After a few decades, the spectacular endangered Danube mayfly has returned to the river Danube, probably due to increasing water quality after disappearing from the rivers of Middle Europe owing to water pollution. The summer of 2024 was memorable for fans of these mayflies, as the season — likely extended by dry, hot days and persistently low water levels — lasted nearly a month. On 25 occasions, we waded deep into the strong currents, surrounded and overwhelmed by the mayflies. A massive swarm numbering in the millions is approaching the illuminated city of Szentendre. The lights lure the mayflies out due to their positive phototaxis. During the late August festival, dense clouds of mayflies engulfed the restaurants, vendors, wine bars, and concerts, becoming an unmissable and alarming spectacle. The mayflies circled around the lights for a long time, unable to break free, and sadly perished on the asphalt. Such an evening can result in ecological damage worth billions, as mayflies writhing and drying on pavements, roads, and ledges perish along with the egg clusters that represent their offspring.
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Instagram: @imrepotyo
Facebook: Imre Potyó
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© Sho Hoshino / CUPOTY
Name: Sho Hoshino
Title: Dreamy State
Category: Intimate Landscape
Place: 1st
Nationality: Japanese
Picture details: A tree covered with rime ice in Nagano Prefecture, Japan.
Caption: I took this photograph when frost-covered trees stood before a mist that turned pink in the morning sunlight. The composition relies on soft, pale tones, anchored by the dark, intricate shape of the tree trunk and its distorted form. I intentionally excluded the base of the tree to highlight the complexity of its trunk. I also wanted to emphasise the special conditions of frost and mist, so I waited for the moment when the background turned pink. Although the scene depicts the freezing cold of winter, the warm colour tones give it a gentle sense of warmth rather than loneliness.
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Further information:
Website: www.shohoshinophotography.com
Instagram: @shocha_photography
Facebook: Shocha Photography
YouTube: Shocha Photography
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© Laurent Hesemans / CUPOTY
Name: Laurent Hesemans
Title: Good Boy
Category: Invertebrate Portrait
Place: 1st
Nationality: Belgian
Picture details: A moth (Bombycidae sp.) in Tinamaste, Costa Rica.
Caption: A favourite quarry of many macro photographers, it is always a lovely opportunity to spend time with members of the Bombycid family. Incredibly photogenic, the large eyes and antenna positions of these moths, especially the males, always lend their portraits a somewhat melancholy feeling. They are a lesson in beautiful subtlety and a reminder to always give even the simplest arthropods and small creatures a second, closer look.
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Further information:
Website: www.laurent-hesemans.com
Instagram: @Laurent_nam
Facebook: Laurent Hesemans
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© Minghui Yuan / CUPOTY
Name: Minghui Yuan
Title: Rebirth from Destruction
Category: Plants
Place: 1st
Nationality: Chinese
Picture details: Decaying lotus leaves and floating fern (Salvinia natans) in Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, China.
Caption: In a pond outside the tropical rainforest in Xishuangbanna, I found these decaying lotus leaves floating on the dark water, their skeletal veins creating a delicate lacework of purple and green. Amongst them, bright clusters of floating fern had taken hold. Floating fern thrives only in warm, clean waters, so finding it here amongst these skeletal leaves felt like the rebirth of hope and a symbol of the continuation of life.
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© Paul Kenny / CUPOTY
Name: Paul Kenny
Title: COPPER WORKS No.25 - 2024
Category: Studio Art
Place: 1st
Nationality: British
Picture details: A copper plate distressed and oxidised by everyday household materials.
Caption: Three years ago, at the age of 71 and after 35 years in rural/coastal tranquillity, my wife and I moved back into the centre of a big city. For 50 years, my work had been concentrated on creating visionary landscapes, constructed from insignificant scraps from the shoreline. My new environment conjured up memories of my upbringing in the post-Industrial Revolution Lowry-esque landscape of inner-city Salford. Over three years, a new body of work has emerged, but the fragments of flotsam and jetsam that formed the source of my medium have been replaced with the chemical fragments of common household materials — bleach, cleaners, gardening products, bathroom products. This image is made on a glass plate and captured with a scanner.
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Further information:
Website: www.paul-kenny.co.uk
Instagram: @jmarmaduke
Threads: @jmarmaduke
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© Rithved Girish / CUPOTY
Name: Rithved Girish
Title: Guardians of the Hive
Category: Young
Place: 1st
Nationality: Indian
Age: 14 years old
Picture details: Stingless bee (likely Tetragonula sp.) nest in Mezhathur, Kerala, India.
Caption: During my summer holiday in Kerala, India, I encountered a nest of stingless bees, likely from the Tetragonula family. Fascinated by the tiny wonders of nature, I make it a point to explore and learn more about the natural world whenever I visit India. These small yet remarkable bees had carefully built their home using wax, resin, and mud, creating a unique tube-shaped entrance to safeguard their colony. The guard bees at the entrance remained alert, ensuring the safety of their hive from potential threats. No bait or attractants were used whilst capturing this moment, allowing their natural behaviour to remain undisturbed. This image serves as a reminder of the vital role these tiny creatures play in maintaining ecological balance.
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Instagram: @rithved.girish
Facebook: Rithved Girish
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