The Nikon Small World Competition is one of the world’s well-known photography competitions, which was founded in 1975. Its goal is to offer a platform to showcase the excellent work of photomicrographs. In 2023, this competition received around 1,900 photo entries from 72 countries.
This year’s first prize was for Hassanain Qambari, assisted by Jayden Dickson of the Lions Eye Institute, for his vivid image of a rodent optic nerve head presenting astrocytes (yellow), contractile proteins (red), and retinal vasculature (green).
“Current diagnostic criteria and treatment regimens for diabetic retinopathy are limited to the late-stage appearance of the disease, with irreversible damage to retinal microvasculature and function,” said Qambari. “The visual system is a complex and highly specialized organ, with even relatively minor perturbations to the retinal circulation able to cause devastating vision loss. I entered the competition as a way to showcase the complexity of retinal microcirculation.”
The second prize was awarded to Ole Bielfeldt for his image of a matchstick igniting by the friction surface of the box. The image was captured in an incredibly short duration of one eight-thousandth of a second and employed imaging stacking techniques.
The third prize was given to Malgorzata Lisowska for her image of breast cancer cells.
Please find below a selection of excellent images from the 4th to the 20th.
Affiliation
If you would like to explore more outstanding images from the Small World Competitions, I recommend visiting its official website.
Image credits: All photos are individually credited and provided courtesy of Nikon Small World.
