Tiny ink droplets above a page earned first place in the 2026 Nikon Small World photography competition. The winners of the 52nd annual contest were announced on October 21, with 86 images receiving recognition. Taken through microscopes, the photographs reveal details that are difficult to see with the naked eye.
The winning photographer, Ole Bielfeldt, is a design student in Cologne, Germany. He became interested in microscopic photography around 2021, after finding an old school microscope in his attic during the pandemic. For his winning image, he built a custom rig for an inkjet printer so that the paper moved while its ink nozzles—the parts that release ink—stayed still and in focus. Because the droplets moved too quickly for his slow-motion camera to capture clearly, he worked in darkness and used a single brief flash to freeze their movement.
Second place went to John-Oliver Dum for a photograph of a jumping spider covered in pollen, the dust produced by flowers. The image reveals its fine hairs and some of its eight eyes. Other recognized photographs include a mouse eye and human nerve cells. Together, the images explore both familiar objects and living structures at a very small scale.
