photo: © Abby Raeder - Pond Geometry - cupoty.com
Hungarian photographer Tibor Litauszki has won the Close-up Photographer of the Year Challenge 2023: Water won with his intriguing photo of a newt feeding on frogspawn at night.
The CUPOTY Challenge runs throughout the month of November, outside of annual Close-up Photographer of the Year competition om, and has a different theme each year, determined by the CUPOTY community. This last edition had as its theme Water.
"In Germany, where I live, there are many clear and slow-flowing streams that provide an excellent habitat for alpine salamanders. I have been following these animals for years, including last year. A few days after the frogs laid their eggs, at dusk, the salamanders emerged and feasted on frogspawn all night long. I wanted to capture this moment underwater. To do this, I placed my camera in an underwater housing, secured it with weights and placed it under the frog eggs.
I was a little nervous at first because I wasn't sure if the underwater housing was completely waterproof. But I thought that if no bubbles appeared, my camera would remain dry. I manually set the focus on the lens beforehand and hoped to have luck. Waiting nearby until dark, I illuminated the first salamander that appeared with an LED light and activated the camera with a homemade wired remote control."
The British photographer Ian Gilmour took second place with a bold and creative photo of flowers in ice.
The German Claudia Gaupp about Sparkling Crown: "For me, Love-in-the-Mist (Nigella damascena) is the epitome of early summer. I have always been fascinated by the variety of nigella flowers. From the bud to the dried seed capsule, each stage has its own secret. In this case I was intrigued by the details of the stamens and petals, which are surrounded by net-like leaves.
Shortly after a rain shower, the small water droplets in the leaves reminded me of a sparkling crown on the bloom. I took the photo in my garden in natural evening light and converted it in post-processing to a very cool blue-green background, matching the blue of the flower."
Sebastien Blomme from France won third place with a delicate damselfly resting on the water. “One day I lay down in the water at a spot where I had noticed a damselfly returning regularly to rest. I waited patiently for its return.
With each appearance, I fired my camera into burst mode, hoping to capture the moment when his wings would be spread in all their glory. After a hundred attempts, I finally got the image I wanted."
Tibor will take home £300 and his work, alongside twelve other photographs, will be exhibited to a global audience in the winners gallery at www.cupoty.com.
