2024 Shortlist Announcement

2024 Shortlist Announcement.

We’re very pleased to announce the 2024 shortlist for the Adaptalux Macro Photography Awards!

This is the first year of our new annual awards and the entries have been spectacular. With over 1000 entries, 80 have been chosen to feature on the shortlist.

The calibre of entries has been incredible, and we look forward to announcing the winner of Macro Photographer of the Year!

Visit the shortlist to browse some amazing macro photography and see if your entry is included!

Let’s have a look at a few of the shortlisted images and what the photographer has to say about them.

FLOWER

Ji Yuan

“This is the most common product of monosodium glutamate in our daily lives after hydrolysis and crystallization: glutamic acid. Each hydrolysis and repeated crystallization will result in different patterns, and different colors can be obtained through polarized light sources.

Through hundreds of repeated productions, this unique pattern was selected, with 34 sets of 1360 shutter cycles and over 90 hours of shooting and post-processing accumulated over 20 days. Multi group splicing 10X focus stack”

The Curious Student

Rodolfo Vega Littlewood

“I love jumping spiders, the colors, attitude and personality.

But living in a place so arid like the Sonoran Desert makes them a bit difficult to find, so when I spot one in my house or a window, I just have to make a whole photoshoot. The good thing about them, when you understand and get to know them, is that they are really easy to pose.

A pencil seemed like a good prop for It to explore and a sheet of paper as background.

Canon body and macro lens + homemade diffuser.”

Re Ink Carnation

Agi Wallace

“This is one from my Tranciense project – of Submerged fllowers, where I create submerged floral images with backstories using techniques and colours to support their backstory.

Carnations are known as the flowers of the Gods and are associated with devotion, fascination, distinction and love.

Carnations are linked in mythology to the Goddess Diana who fell in love with a shepherd who did not reciprocate her feelings. Spurned, she became enraged and plucked his eyes out, discarding his body on the ground and Carnations sprouted from his remains.

Red Carnations generally represent affections, whilst white symbolise love and purity.

Hence using Pink and white inks.”

‘Ghost fungi’ by moonlight

Keith Horton

“These are ‘Ghost Fungi’ (Omphalotus nidiformis), bioluminescent (‘glow in the dark’) fungi, photographed in the light of a full moon. The function of the bioluminescence isn’t fully understood yet.

I blended two exposures in photoshop to make this image, one exposed for the fungi, the other for the moon and sky. You need a long exposure to bring out the full green colour. (The main exposure in this case was 60 seconds.)

I noticed these fungi during the daytime, and I also knew there would be a full moon that night shining from behind them, so it was just a matter of going back at night at the right time to capture the image.

I blended two exposures in photoshop to make this image, one exposed for the fungi, the other for the moon and sky. You need a long exposure to bring out the full green colour. (The main exposure in this case was 60 seconds.)

Photographed in Puckey’s Estate, Wollongong, in New South Wales, Australia.”

Feathers from the Brazilian Amazon

Ori Junior

“In my work in this series of photographs, I present abstract compositions, where the feathers of birds from the Brazilian Amazon are protagonists.

Through the technique of macro photography, I enter the fascinating world of small details, revealing a hidden beauty that usually escapes our everyday perception.

The beauty of the small details that are hidden in the symmetry of the lines, in the exuberance of the colors and in the richness of the textures present in feathers from macaws, parrots, parakeets, flamingos and other birds, collected from the Mangal das Garças zoobotanical park in Belém do Pará.”

If you’d like a chance to be featured in next year’s Adaptalux Macro Photography Awards, make sure to sign up to our newsletter to be notified when entries open for 2025.