See the world anew

Curator and historian Beaumont Newhall once said, ‘We are not interested in the unusual, but in the usual seen unusually.’ It’s a quote that seems particularly relevant at the moment with so many of us staying close to home and turning to familiar scenes and subjects for inspiration. If you adopt a childlike curiosity, pretty much anything can become a subject for close-up photography. Among the 6,500 entries to this year’s competition we saw pictures of bubbles resembling planets, sheets of metal painted with mountain ranges made of rust and weeds celebrated as though they were gold medal winners at the Chelsea Flower Show. Of course, there were also more unusual subjects: the swim bladders of transparent larvae, egg cases lined up as though they were an army of Stormtroopers in Star Wars, and molten lava reminding us that the planet we live on is a living, breathing, fragile thing.

This year there were six categories: Animals, Insects, Plants & fungi, Intimate landscape, Manmade and Micro, as well as Young CUPOTY. Galice Hoarau took the overall title for his beautifully minimal shot of an eel larva, while Tamás Koncz-Bisztricz was named Young Close-up Photographer of the Year 02 for his magical picture of a yellow globular springtail, taken close to his home in Hungary. Whether you travel a hundred miles or a hundred yards, if you arrive at your destination with fresh eyes and a beginner’s mind you will be rewarded with images that