Eal Larva.
"If your images aren't good enough, you haven't gotten close enough to them," he said. Robert Cape . Approaching to the point of practically unraveling the composition of an animal, plant or molecule is what the participants of the prizes do Close-up Photographer of the Year (CUPOTY), organized by photojournalists Tracy and Dan Calde since 2018 in collaboration with Affinity Photo.
Each year they select up to 100 winning images in seven categories : animals, insects, plants and fungi, intimate landscapes, artificial and micro world (for images created with a microscope), as well as young photographers for participants up to 17 years old.
The goal is to encourage photographers to slow down , enjoy their craft and make lasting connections with the world around them, and of course, bring the natural world to the fore.
This year they have received some 6,500 photographs from 52 countries , but only one has won the first prize. This is the image of an eel larva made by the French photographer and professor of marine molecular ecology Galice Hoarau on the island of Lembeh (Indonesia) during a diving practice.
“What makes black water diving so magical is the abundance of planktonic creatures that you see as they participate in one of the largest daily migrations of any animal on Earth. After sunset, small pelagic animals (like this larva) rise near the surface to feed where sunlight has allowed planktonic algae to grow. At dawn, they dive to the depths and stay there during the day to escape predators,” she recounted when she received the CUPOTY prize that is valued at $2,500.
Do you want to meet other winners of the rest of the categories? You can enter our image gallery with some of the winners.