The Finest Close-Up Photography Of 2025 In 21 Photos

Discovering the hidden fantastic thing about nature up shut, the Close Up Photography 2025 competition (CUPOTY) celebrates probably the most extraordinary particulars of our planet — from a bat’s high-speed belly-dip right into a pond to the fragile construction of a spider’s internet. This yr’s shortlisted choice options the most effective close-up, micro and macro images chosen from 11,681 entries throughout 11 classes.

Now in its seventh yr, CUPOTY has grown into the world’s main competitors devoted solely to macro, micro, and close-up pictures. Founded in 2018 by photojournalists Tracy and Dan Calder, the competition encourages photographers to decelerate, observe the small wonders round them and forge deeper connections with nature.

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Revealing the small print most individuals overlook, the shortlist, based on the organizers, “provides the ultimate showcase of close-up photography, from which the Top 100 pictures and winners will be announced in January, 2025.”

The high photographer will obtain a £2,500 grand prize, whereas every class winner earns £250 and a coveted CUPOTY trophy.

The 11 galleries embrace: Animals (supported by Affinity Photo), Insects (supported by Nikon), Butterflies and Dragonflies, Arachnids, Invertebrate Portrait, Underwater, Intimate Landscape, Plants, Fungi, Studio Art and Young Photographer.

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The Grey-headed Flying Fox within the photograph above, shortlisted within the Animals class, takes a high-speed stomach dip in a pool of water at Myuna Wetlands, Australia — a uncommon sight that highlights this species’ important function in forest ecosystems. Known as “night gardeners” they help over 100 plant species by serving to seed dispersal and pollination.

This keystone species is presently listed as weak to extinction as a result of ongoing threats they face on account of habitat loss and local weather change.

The Top 100 class winners will probably be unveiled in January, 2025, whereas CUPOTY 8 opens for entries in May, 2026.

Close-Up Photography: Animals

The picture of the brown hare was taken in the course of the morning after a moist begin in Havergate Island in Suffolk, England. The climate situations introduced out the colours, textures and hanging options of the hare, together with the raindrops on its fur.

Every week in French Guiana, Guillaume Correa camps out on the sting of small forest creeks to {photograph} amphibians. When evening comes, the songs information his steps and that’s how he finds glass frogs. “They are so discreet that they disappear as soon as the light returns,” he says. Following a timid whistling, he was in a position to uncover this one, the inexperienced of its pores and skin mixing completely with that of its perch.

Close-Up Photography: Spiders And Butterflies

More Invertebrates Portraits

A sand wasp pokes its head out its sand burrow on a wet day within the dunes at Benar Beach in Wales.

An Acorn weevil sits rakishly on a dandelion flower. The weevil was contained in the flower, having fun with the pollen.

Underwater Close-Up Photographer

A Bargibant’s pygmy seahorse camouflages on a Gorgonian Sea Fan on the Lembeh Strait, Indonesia.

Porcelain Crab are a kind of small, decapod crustacean usually discovered residing in affiliation with numerous marine organisms, together with sea pens like those proven right here in Mabini, Batangas, Philippines.

They’re identified for his or her exhausting, easy exoskeletons, which may resemble porcelain, and their capability to thrive in shut symbiosis with particular kinds of corals and different invertebrates.

Close-Up Photography of Plants and Landscapes

This is a reasonably excessive stage of magnification for a macro shot of a single rose thorn. The bigger thorn is lower than a half-inch excessive. Together, they create a barely surreal and alien panorama the place rose thorns may be mountain peaks (if not Hershey Kisses).

All the shortlisted photos from the Close Up Photography 2025 competitors’s 11 classes may be seen here. Entries for the CUPOTY 8 competitors will open in May 2026.

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