OPEN FOR ENTRIES
The world’s best place to showcase your macro, micro & close-up photographs.
Win £2,500 | Global Exposure | 11 Categories
Grab the Earlybird offer by Sunday, 15th June
In association with
“Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
– Mary Oliver
CUPOTY 7
Welcome to the seventh Close-up Photographer of the Year (CUPOTY), in association with Affinity Photo.
CUPOTY is an annual competition that reveals the hidden wonder of the world through close-up, macro and micro photography.
Submit your best work across 11 categories and be in with a chance of winning the £2,500 cash prize and CUPOTY trophy.
Get featured in our celebrated shortlist galleries (one for each category) and reach a global audience.
Make the Top 100 winners gallery and get seen by millions of people around the world through newspapers, magazines, websites, newsletters and social media.
Be a part of our annual eBook and tell the story behind your picture.
Grab the early bird discount by Sunday, June 15th and save up to 10%.
It only takes 2 minutes to register and you can submit your pictures later. You have until July 20th to send them in.
The competition closes on Sunday 13th July, 2025.
We can’t wait to share your wonder!
Every entrant gets a FREE £19.99 ebook of CUPOTY 7
In association with
Supported by
“For a macro photographer, CUPOTY is THE competition.”
– Henri Koskinen
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
Earlybird deadline:
Sunday 15th June, 2025 at 23:59 (BST)
Final deadline: July 13th
It only takes 2 minutes to sign-up.
No need to send in your pictures now.
Submit your pictures by July 20th.
Categories
Celebrating 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 go into any relevant category or into the 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
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 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.
STUDIO ART
This 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.
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)
Topaz Labs Photo AI 4
Trophy
Digital certificate and badge
Featured in the CUPOTY 7 ebook
Overall winner
£250
Universal License for all three Affinity apps (Photo, Designer + Publisher)
Cynustech Diffuser (to the Insects winner)
Digital certificate and badge
Featured in the CUPOTY 7 ebook
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
Featured in the CUPOTY 7 ebook
Young CUPOTY winner
Entry Fees
Save 10% with the Earlybird Offer on the 15 and 30 picture bundles.
Take 2 minutes to register by Sunday, 15th June.
Every entrant gets a FREE £19.99 ebook of CUPOTY 7
“It is a joy to enter your competition with no need for prolonged captions or technical details at first entry. I wish others were as simple!”
– Stephanie Chadwick
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.
Renee Grinnell Capozzola
Renee is an award-winning, conservation-minded underwater photographer and photojournalist specialising in wide angle and split-level images. She has won over 60 international accolades, including Underwater POTY 2021 and the Female Fifty Fathoms Award from Blancpain through the 2021 Ocean POTY. Her work has appeared worldwide in leading publications, and she is an Ocean Geographic Master Photographer, a fellow of The Explorers Club, and an Ambassador of SEACAM.
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.
Marit van Ekelenburg
Marit is a macro photographer from The Netherlands with over 1 million followers on Instagram and Facebook.. Marit’s goal is to turn fear into fascination by creating colourful portraits of invertebrates. She has written several books and articles on the subject and has exhibited widely. People from all over the world come to her mother’s garden where she hosts macro photography workshops.
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.
Ross Hoddinott
Natural history and landscape photographer Ross has been entering, and winning, photography competitions since he was 10, so he should know an award-winning picture when he sees one. He is a close-up specialist focusing on insects and wild plants, and has written numerous books on the subject. He also runs landscape photography workshops via Dawn 2 Dusk Photography.
Greg Lecoeur
Greg Lecoeur is an ocean and wildlife professional photographer who dedicates his life to the marine world, using the art of digital storytelling to raise awareness about ocean conservation. Greg has won prestigious awards such as the National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year and Underwater Photographer of the Year. He is also the author of two books Requins and Antarctica.
Chien C. Lee
With a background in ecology and environmental education, wildlife photographer Chien C. Lee has been based on the island of Borneo since 1996. He specializes in documenting the flora and fauna of rainforests, with a particular emphasis on species that exhibit extraordinary adaptations such as camouflage, mimicry, and interspecific mutualism. In addition to his photographic work, he is frequently engaged as a guide for specialist biological tours and film projects across Southeast Asia.
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.
Sarah Marino
Sarah Marino is a nature photographer, educator, writer and speaker. Sarah is also a co-founder of the Nature First Photography Alliance, promoting the conservation and stewardship of wild places through her photography and teaching. Sarah’s latest eBook is Beyond the Grand Landscape: Photographing Nature’s Small Scenes.
Piotr Naskrecki
Piotr Naskrecki is an entomologist, conservation biologist, and photographer with 30 years of experience in biodiversity research and exploration in both the academic environment and non-profit conservation organisations. Piotr has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers, several books, and numerous popular articles. He has discovered and described over 150 species new to science. Piotr’s images have been among the winners of major competitions, including Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
Alex Noriega
Alex is a full-time professional nature photographer and photography educator who roams the public lands of the American West in his RV. He has won the International Landscape POTY, USA Landscape POTY and Epson Pano Awards, as well as being widely published in international magazines. Alex teaches through workshops, critiques and tutorials available through his website.
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.
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
The CUPOTY 6 eBook
“Amazing book! What a treasure of images!”
–Håkan Kvarnström on the CUPOTY 5 eBook
The CUPOTY 6 eBook brings together all the winning, Top 100 and shortlisted pictures of the sixth edition of Close-up Photographer of the Year.
373 pages
123 full-page photographs + captions + shooting information
218 tips from the awarded photographers on technique, vision and fieldcraft
All the shortlisted photographs from the 11 categories
The winners from the CUPOTY CHALLENGE: Water
