Enter CUPOTY 6
Revealing the hidden wonder of the world through close-up, macro & micro photography.
In association with
Grab the early bird offer!
“Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
– Mary Oliver
CUPOTY 6
Welcome to the sixth Close-up Photographer of the Year (CUPOTY), in association with Affinity Photo!
Do you photograph things that most people overlook or will never get the chance to see? Do you spend an uncomfortable amount of time laying on the ground trying to photograph a beetle or a wild orchid from the best angle? Do you notice the way mud cracks on the edge of a river or paint peels on a wall? Perhaps you spend days watching the behaviour of an animal or hours waiting for the perfect light to capture nature’s beauty. Or maybe you spend afternoons endlessly adjusting tiny details to get the perfect shot in the studio, or spend all night staring down a microscope.
If you do any of these things, and you’d like to show the astonishing things that you have photographed to your peers, expert jury and global audience, then that’s what Close-up Photographer of the Year is here for.
Close-up Photographer of the Year, in association with Affinity Photo, is an annual competition revealing the hidden wonder of the world through close-up, macro and micro photography.
Enter now for your chance to win the £2,500 cash grand prize and CUPOTY trophy.
There are 10 categories to choose from and a Young category for under 18s.
It’s not all about the winning though. Our celebrated shortlist galleries bring together hundreds of photographers to gauge the current state-of-play in close-up photography. The unique vision, creative approach and individual experience of each photographer collected in the gallery will help viewers see the world anew.
The Top 100 images selected by the expert jury will appear in the winner’s gallery as a permanent exhibition on this website. These images will be seen by millions of people around the world through newspapers, magazines, websites and social media.
Our hope is that these pictures will help to inspire a wider appreciation of nature’s wealth, encourage a deeper connection to these sometimes overlooked animals, plants and landscapes and kindle a desire to protect them.
The competition closes on Sunday 14th July, 2024. It only takes 2 minutes to enter and you can submit your pictures later. You have until July 21st to send them in.
We can’t wait to share your wonder!
In association with
Supported by
“For a macro photographer CUPOTY is THE competition.”
– Henri Koskinen
Open to all
Anyone can enter, from any country, using any type of camera, mobile phone or light microscope.
11 Categories
Enter up to 30 pictures across any of the 10 adult categories and up to 15 images in Young CUPOTY.
Win £2,500
A prize fund worth almost £9,000 is shared between the overall winner and category winners.
Get seen
Be showcased in our Top 100 gallery, shortlist galleries and international media outlets.
Global exposure
Your work, seen.
Print
TV
Online
Newsletters
As seen in:
“It was a great experience for me to win in this competition. I loved how you worked with the media coverage. It was huge, even some media from my country (India) has covered the news.”
– Ripan Biswas
Closing Date
EARLY BIRD OFFER
Save 10% by entering before Friday 31st May, 2024 at 23:59 (BST).
 |
It only takes 2 minutes to enter.
No need to send in your pictures now.
FINAL DEADLINE: Sunday 14th July, 2024
Categories
We celebrate close-up, macro and micro photography across 11 categories.
Send us your best close-ups, wide-angle close-ups, traditional macro, extreme-macro and photomicrographs made with a camera, phone, microscope, scanner or non-camera processes.
All images must start with a photograph, no generative AI is allowed.
Images made with a microscope can now go into any relevant category or into the new Studio Art category.
See our previous winners to get an idea of the type of images that are acceptable.
ANIMALS
Any animal, apart from insects, springtails and arachnids belong here, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, fish and molluscs that are not entirely submerged underwater.
•– Supported by –•
INSECTS
The category for most insects, including flies, bees, wasps, beetles, and bugs. Springtails sneak in here too with their six legs. (Butterflies, moths, dragonflies and damselflies have their own category. Spiders, ticks and mites go into Arachnids.)
•– Supported by –•
INVERTEBRATE PORTRAIT
This category is designed to show the natural beauty of invertebrates and the macro skill of the photographer. The focus should be on the creature itself, rather than behaviour or artistic processing.
•– Supported by –•
ARACHNIDS
A brand new category for CUPOTY 6 is the place for spiders, scorpions, pseudoscorpions, harvestmen, sun or wind spiders, whip spiders, whip scorpions, palpigrades, ricinuleids, ticks and mites.
BUTTERFLIES & DRAGONFLIES
A category to celebrate the beauty of butterflies, moths, dragonflies and damselflies in all their life stages.
UNDERWATER
Photographs of any flora, fauna or object that is in fresh or sea water, completely submerged or split-level. Wide angle close-ups and macro are accepted.
PLANTS
Plants in all their forms belong here, as does algae and seaweed. Flower heads, plants in their habitat, moss, leaves, tree details and seeds are all possible subjects. (Creative plant pictures made in the home or studio should go into the new Studio Art category.)
FUNGI & SLIME MOULDS
Fungi & Slime Moulds is the home for mushrooms, toadstools, slime moulds and lichen. Open to interpretation, photograph them any way you can imagine.
INTIMATE LANDSCAPE
Capture the natural or urban landscape in close-up. Photograph small scenes, tight crops, or overlooked details of the natural world. Suitable subjects include water, ice, stone, sand, minerals, fire, smoke, trees, light and reflections. Pictures from the urban landscape, such as peeling paint, rusty surfaces, street furniture, boat hulls and graffiti are included this year.
•– Supported by –•
STUDIO ART
This new category is for photographs taken at home, in the studio or in the lab. Images should be creative, with a strong pictorial quality and a fine-art perspective. Think photographic experiments, botanical still lives, flat-lays, liquid drop art, oil and water combinations, paper constructions, bubbles, abstract photomicrographs, chemical reactions, microscopic crystals, camera-less prints and images made with a scanner.
•– Supported by –•
YOUNG CUPOTY
Open to photographers aged 17 or under, with no restrictions on subject matter – if it’s close it counts!
•– Supported by –•
“There are so many talented close-up and macro photographers out there, that I never would have connected with if not for seeing them on your shortlists!”
– Luke Roman
Prizes
£2,500
Universal License for all three Affinity apps (Photo, Designer + Publisher)
Trophy
Digital certificate and badge
Overall winner
£250
Universal License for all three Affinity apps (Photo, Designer + Publisher)
FRAMES subscription (for the Intimate Landscape winner)
Retouch4me Dust, Color Match and Portrait Volumes plug-ins (to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd places in Studio Art)
Digital certificate and badge
Category winners
Sigma Lens
SIGMA 105mm F2.8 DG DN MACRO | Art lens worth £700
Universal License for all three Affinity apps (Photo, Designer + Publisher)
Trophy
Digital certificate and badge
Young CUPOTY winner
Entry Fees
Save 10% by grabbing the Early Bird offer before the end of 31st May.
£11
£10
1 Picture
One category
£22
£20
6 Pictures
Across all ten categories
£33
£30
15 Pictures
Across all ten categories
£44
£40
30 Pictures
Across all ten categories
£5
15 Pictures
Young CUPOTY
The Jury
Show your work to the world-class photographers and editors that make-up our expert panel. More names will be added shortly.
Karine Aigner
Karine is the current winner of Wildlife Photographer of the Year. She spent nine years as Senior Picture Editor for National Geographic Kids magazine before starting her own freelance photography career. Karine is now an associate fellow with the International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP) and a member of Girls Who Click. She has been published in National Geographic, GEO, Nature Conservancy Magazine, WWF and BBC Wildlife magazines among others, and leads photographic tours across the globe.
Nigel Atherton
Nigel is the long-standing editor of Amateur Photographer magazine. After studying photography at Plymouth College of Art & Design and the University of Westminster he worked as a professional photographer before joining Amateur Photographer magazine in 1994. He was appointed Group Editor of the TI Media photography portfolio in 2013.
Sue Bishop
Sue specialises in flower photography. Her aim is to create an image that goes beyond a mere record of its subject and draws the viewer into the nature of the bloom. She has written three books about photography, and her work has been exhibited in London and around the UK. Sue is a lecturer, workshop leader, and co-founder of Light & Land, a company that organises photo holidays.
Tracy Calder
Photographer and writer Tracy is a co-founder of CUPOTY. She has worked on the editorial team of seven photography books, and is the author of Macro & Close-up Photography. Her work has been featured in more than 30 consumer magazines, and exhibited at The Photographers’ Gallery, Saatchi Gallery and The National Portrait Gallery in London. She is a former editor of Outdoor Photography magazine.
Jaime Culebras
Spanish nature photographer Jaime lives in Ecuador where he also works as a reptile and amphibian researcher. He holds a Bachelor of Biology, an MSc in Environmental Education and an MSc in Biodiversity and Conservation of Tropical Areas as well as being awarded in World Press Photo, Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Big Picture, Montphoto, and GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year, among others. Through Photo Wildlife Tours, Jaime runs guided trips in Ecuador and South America.
Matt Doogue
Award-winning photographer Matt is a passionate conservationist, tour leader, public speaker, outreach teacher and mental health ambassador. His work has been published in most of the UK’s leading photographic titles, and regularly features on the BBC’s Springwatch shows. In his spare time he visits schools to educate children of all ages on the importance of our natural world.
Guy Edwardes
Guy Edwardes has been a professional landscape and nature photographer for almost 30 years. As well as managing his own library of 250,000 images, Guy is the author of two books, including 100 Ways to Take Better Nature and Wildlife Photographs. He runs around thirty workshops a year, taking him to some of the world’s most spectacular landscape and wildlife locations, such as Costa Rica, Ecuador, Iceland, Africa and many countries in Europe.
Wim van Egmond
Working in the limbo between art and science, Wim specialises in photomicrography and extreme macro. He often creates new tools and techniques to capture images beyond what the human eye can see. Wim is one of the most successful entrants of the prestigious Nikon Small World competition, having been recognised over 30 times and winning the contest twice.
Tom Gilks
Tom Gilks is currently the Picture Editor on BBC Wildlife Magazine and is responsible for showcasing the strongest, most innovative and compelling wildlife images he can find. After studying ecology at university, Tom worked for several picture agencies and freelanced as a picture researcher with various magazines before spending three years living in East Africa working as a photographer, mainly with NGOs.
Viktoria Haack
Viktoria has a background in fine art and anthropology. This combined with her love for the natural world, brings a unique perspective to her photography. Her ethos is to tread lightly; observe and document the visual story within whichever genre she is working. Her work covers the fields of landscape, portrait, wedding, event, promotion, editorial, stock and photography education.
Brendan ‘Cygnus’ James
Brendan is a professional macro photographer based in the far north tropics of Australia and is on a quest to find the strangest little creatures around the world. He is obsessed with lighting and composition and invented the Cygnustech Macro Diffuser and sells them globally to other macro aficionados. Brendan is at the centre of the macro community on Instagram having amassed over 33,000 followers.
David Maitland
With a PhD in Zoology, nature photographer David combines art and academic research to produce stunning macro and super-macro images. He has been a full-time photographer since 2006, and won European Wildlife Photographer of the Year just two years later. David loves to capture intricate details of the creatures he encounters, and to celebrate the beauty and wonder of nature.
Bart Somers
Bart Somers founded Insectguru on Instagram in 2016 with the idea of featuring daily photos and facts about Arthropods. After more than 3,000 posts and 229K followers, it's become one of the largest and most highly-respected macro hubs on the platform. As a nature enthusiast, Bart enjoys giving photographers a place to showcase their work, while showing people how beautiful and delicate nature is.
Georgina Steytler
Georgina is an Australian nature photographer with a passion for birds, ethics and conservation. After giving up her corporate job to pursue her passion in photography, she has spent over 10 years working to produce images for conservation organisations across Australia (for free), as well as teaching the art and ethics of bird photography through workshops, talks and articles. She has won numerous national and international awards and in November 2021 her book, For the Love of Birds, was published by Australian Geographic.
Rachael Talibart
Rachael is a professional seascape and coastal photographer represented by galleries in Europe and the USA. Her work is frequently exhibited and her limited edition prints are collected internationally. She is the author of three monographs and regularly writes for photography magazines. Rachael owns f11 Workshops, providing location and online photography training and she leads international photography tours for Ocean Capture.
Tomasz Trzebiatowski
Tomasz Trzebiatowski is a photographer and independent publisher. The founder, publisher and editor of FRAMES Magazine (“because excellent photography belongs on paper”), he is also the editor-in-chief of the FujiLove Magazine for users of the Fujifilm X and GFX camera systems. His photographic interests lie predominantly in fine art, music, and street photography. He is also a classical pianist.
Keith Wilson
Award-winning editor and photojournalist Keith Wilson has more than 30 years of experience in the publishing industry. Keith spent nine years as editor of Amateur Photographer, before launching Outdoor Photography, B+W Photography, and Wild Planet Photo magazines. He is a sought after editor of fine-art photography books, specialising in wildlife, landscape and the environment.
Picture credit: © Martin Hartley
