CUPOTY 5
Entrants to Close-up Photographer of the Year 5 share the stories and techniques behind their pictures with competition co-founder Tracy Calder
Apparently, Leonardo da Vinci used to get up every morning and write a list of all the things he wanted to learn that day.
You’ve got to admire his drive, and the fact that he died at the ripe old age of 67 (life expectancy was around 35 back then) seems to suggest that his thirst for knowledge might have played a part in keeping him alive. While I share none of da Vinci’s polymath brilliance, I do share his desire to learn something new every day. Imagine my delight, then, when I had the joy of spending more than 20 hours chatting to a group of brilliant scientists, naturalists, journalists, writers and photographers while judging Close-up Photographer of the Year 5 (2023)!
Thanks to these wonderful individuals I now know that tadpoles can eat birds, ants fire acid like water pistols and bees sometimes hold each other’s legs while they sleep. And then, of course, there is the knowledge gained from looking at the photographs and accompanying captions sent in. More than 11,000 creative and original pictures made by people whose passion and dedication to the craft of photography is abundantly clear.
Personally, I think this is our best survey of close-up, macro and micro photography yet, and I’m so grateful to those who have provided the opportunity to see and learn from their work. I hope you feel the same.
This year there were 11 categories: Animals, Insects, Butterflies & Dragonflies, Invertebrate Portrait, Underwater, Plants, Fungi & Slime Moulds, Intimate Landscape, Human Made, Micro and Young CUPOTY. Csaba Daróczi took the overall title with his incredible image of a bird taken from inside a tree stump, while Carlos Pérez Naval was named Young Close-up Photographer of the Year 5 for his unusual picture of a Moorish gecko in a ‘petrified forest’.
To see the winners and Top 100 pictures from CUPOTY 5, visit www.cupoty.com. To stay up to date with all things CUPOTY, sign up to the newsletter.
Overall Winner (and winner of the Animals) category Csaba Daróczi The Bird of the Forest
Category: Animals
Nationality: Hungarian
Occupation: Photographer
Further information: www.daroczicsaba.hu, Instagram: @daroczics
‘In the winter of 2023, I took a lot of photographs in a forest close to my home in Hungary. I found something new to photograph almost every week, and I spent several days exploring ideas and perfecting techniques. Staying curious and open-minded led me to this hollowed-out tree stump, which measured around half a metre in diameter. I carefully positioned my GoPro 11 camera inside the trunk
