"Recognizing Excellence in Photography through the Microscope"

John Hart: recrystallized melt mix of carbon tetra-bromide and resorcinal (33X). [Source]

The Nikon International Small World Competition first began in 1974 as a means to recognize and applaud the efforts of those involved with photography through the light microscope. Since then, Small World has become a leading showcase for photomicrographers from the widest array of scientific disciplines.

A photomicrograph is a technical document that can be of great significance to science or industry. But a good photomicrograph is also an image whose structure, color, composition, and content is an object of beauty, open to several levels of comprehension and appreciation.

Here are all the 2009 winners.

Below: "Patterned expression of wild-type and transgenic Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) embryos (200x)" by Alistair Boettiger of the Levine Lab at UC Berkeley.

Fruit. Fly. Embryos.

Related post:
Small, smaller, really darn small, so small it's like totally unreal