The Wonderful Winners of Close-Up Photographer of the Year 7

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Australian photographer Ross Gudgeon has won the grand prize at Close-up Photographer of the Year 7 for Fractal Forest, an extraordinary underwater image photographed inside a cauliflower soft coral in the Lembeh Strait, Indonesia. The image earned Gudgeon the competition’s top award and a £2,500 ($3,400) prize.

“Named for its cauliflower-like form, this soft coral is made up of countless small, rounded polyps that give it a puffy texture,” explains Gudgeon. “I wanted to explore a perspective that isn’t possible with conventional lenses, and an underwater probe lens allowed me to do that. By carefully threading the lens through the coral’s branches without disturbing them, I was able to photograph the subject from the inside looking-out, offering a different view of a common marine organism.”

Swarm of mayflies illuminated at night over water, their translucent wings creating a misty effect. City lights and their reflections are visible in the background across the river.

Close-up photo of a moth showing its detailed face, large dark eyes, feathery antennae, and brown wings, with the moth perched on a rough, brown surface against a blurred background.

A tree with dark branches is covered in white frost, standing against a soft pastel background, creating a delicate winter scene. The bare branches are intricately outlined with ice crystals.

Colorful, partially decayed water lily leaves and clusters of small green floating plants are scattered across the surface of dark water, creating an abstract, organic pattern.

Close-up Photographer of the Year (CUPOTY) is an international photography competition dedicated to revealing the hidden wonder of the world through macro, micro and close-up imagery.

The seventh edition of the competition attracted over 12,000 entries from 63 countries. A jury of 22 expert photographers, naturalists and editors spent more than 20 hours on Zoom calls to select the winners and Top 100 images.

A close-up of a translucent aquatic egg sac with many developing tadpoles inside, attached to a mossy underwater surface against a dark background.

Close-up of abstract, wavy, layered orange and beige shapes with light shining through, resembling organic forms such as mushroom gills or textured fabric folds.

A blurred close-up of a butterfly with yellow-edged wings and blue spots, resting on a textured, brown tree bark background. The motion blur creates a dreamy, abstract effect.

A close-up of a green and orange spider capturing a brown-winged insect, both entangled in a web, against a black background.

Abstract artwork with a textured green and teal background, featuring a dark central area surrounding a glowing yellow-green circular shape, with white, frost-like patterns radiating around the edges.

Close-up of several small bees clustered at the entrance of a tube-shaped nest made of soil or plant material, with a blurred natural background.

This year’s winning images span 11 categories, with subjects ranging from frog spawn resembling a galaxy and a ghost-like swarm of mayflies approaching a Hungarian town, to an ice-covered tree in Nagano and a fantastical landscape created by oxidising a copper plate with household materials.

“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.”

To check out all the winners, head to the CUPOTY website.

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