Photomicrography: Weird and wonderful

A photographic competition that celebrates the beauty and complexity of life as seen under a light microscope attracted over 2000 entries from 88 countries.

The Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition is in its 43rd year and is open to anyone with an interest in microscopy and photography.

Here is a selection of the winning and commended images from the 2017 competition.

1st Place: Bram van den Broek, Andriy Volkov, Kees Jalink, Nicole Schwarz and Reinhard Windoffer of the Netherlands Cancer Institute captured human skin cells expressing fluorescently tagged keratin.

2nd Place: Havi Sarfaty of Israel took this image of Senecio vulgaris (a flowering plant) seed head.

3rd Place: Jean-Marc Babalian of Nantes, France, snapped Volvox algae releasing its daughter colonies.

4th Place: Teresa Zgoda from Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, captured this image of the head of Taenia solium (tapeworm).

Emre Can Alagöz of Marmara University in Istanbul, Turkey, captured this view of a jumping spider.

A geranium flower with a folded up stigma encircled by pollen covered anthers.