Spectacular Winning Photos from The Close-Up Photographer of the Year 2020

Close-up Photographer of the Year is an international competition celebrating the best close-up, macro and micro photography from the bountiful ecosystems across planet Earth. Established in 2018, the competition’s inaugural winners are an intimate delight of close-up captures guaranteed to make you awe in amazement.

First in the animals section and overall winner of the competition was this shot of an eel larva off the coast of Indonesia during a blackwater dive. (Photo by Galice Hoarau/Close Up Photographer of the Year 2020)

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Photographed during a night walk through the Kubah national park on the island of Borneo, a cat gecko, which gets its name from the way it curls up its tail to cover itself while sleeping. (Photo by Bernhard Schubert/Close Up Photographer of the Year 2020)

Butterflies feasting on the nectar of carefully composed flowers in France. (Photo by Emelin Dupieux/Close Up Photographer of the Year 2020)

Shot on a smartphone, an amazingly detailed microshot of a glassworm. (Photo by Andrei Savitsky/Close Up Photographer of the Year 2020)

A raft spider skimming across a marshy pool in search of prey in Plesheevo Lake national park, Russia. (Photo by Svetlana Ivanenko/Close Up Photographer of the Year 2020)

A bufo bufo, or common toad, spotted swimming close to the surface at Buèges spring in Occitania, France. (Photo by Mathieu Foulquie/Close Up Photographer of the Year 2020)

Ice crystals formed when moisture became trapped inside a faulty thermopane window. (Photo by Edwin Giesbers/Close Up Photographer of the Year 2020)

A lava flow erupting at the feet of the photographer during a trek across the Kalapana lava field in Hawaii. (Photo by Mark James Ford/Close Up Photographer of the Year 2020)

Water scorpions in silhouette, backlit by torches. (Photo by Juan Gonzalez/Close Up Photographer of the Year 2020)

A pool ingeniously filled with clear water in the middle of Lake Kerniki in Greece enabled this shot of feeding pelicans. (Photo by Bence Mate/Close Up Photographer of the Year 2020)

A spider in a swamp at the Turjanos nature reserve in Hungary. (Photo by Csaba Daroczi/Close Up Photographer of the Year 2020)