Beautifully diverse grains of sand, the underbelly of creepy crawlies and the magnificent colours of essential minerals are some of the winners of this year's Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition.
First prize in the competition that looks for a balance between expert skill and aesthetics went to Dr. Igor Siwanowicz for his exquisitely creepy micrograph shot of a bug that landed on his arm. Nikon said the image demonstrated "the beauty in ugly".
Dr Siwanowicz said: “My art causes a dissonance for its viewer - a conflict between the culturally imprinted perception of an insect as something repulsive and ugly with a newly-acquired admiration of the beauty of its form.
"My hope is that in some way, my photomicrographs prompt people to realise the presence of cultural programming, question it, and eventually throw it off as an illusion.”