The Nikon International Small World Competition is dedicated to furthering creativity and excellence in photomicrography. Combining microscopy and photography, a photomicrographer is able to capture an image of the world that the naked eye can not see.
A photomicrograph can be of great significance to science and industry, but a good photomicrograph is also an image whose structure, color, composition and content becomes an object of beauty, open to several levels of comprehension and aesthetic appreciation.
The Nikon Small World Competition is open to anyone with an interest in photography though the light microscope. Truly international in scope, entries have been received from the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, Latin American, Asia, and Africa. Winners have included both professionals and hobbyists.
The top three images of this years competition include Dr. Paul Appleton's image of a mouse colon, Mr. Raul Gonzalez's image of an aquatic bacteria photographed next to a diatom -- a common phytoplankton that generates its energy through photosynthesis, and Jens Ruchel's photomicrograph of an aquatic worm which lives in shallow coastal regions.

To learn more about Nikon's Small World enter www.nikonsmallworld.com