Now celebrating its 40th year, Nikon Small World is widely regarded as the leading forum to recognize proficiency and photographic excellence of photography taken under the microscope. To select the winners, competition judges analyzed entries from all over the world covering subjects ranging from chemical compounds to up-close-and-personal looks at biological specimens. The 2014 winners will be revealed on October 30th. In 2014, the competition received over 1,200 entries from more than 79 countries around the world. (Photo by Dr. Igor Robert Siwanowicz/Nikon Small World 2014)

Hunter Chiaki Kodama guts a deer in a shed in Oi, Fukui Prefecture, Japan, November 17, 2016. A small but growing number of Japanese women enter the male-dominated world of hunting, where it was once taboo for men to even speak to a woman before going on a hunt. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

Pangolins in Crisis: Brent Stirton, South Africa; 1st place, Natural world and wildlife. “Pangolins are the world’s most illegally trafficked mammals, with an estimated one million trafficked to Asia in the last 10 years. Their scales are used in traditional Chinese and Vietnamese medicine, and their meat is sold as a high-priced delicacy. As a result, pangolins are listed as critically endangered and anyone who trades or consumes them is breaking the law. This body of work exposes the trade, while exploring aspects of illegality and celebrating the people who are trying to save these animals”. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Sony World Photography Awards 2020)

A taxi driver seen sleeping on his taxi in the middle of a decorated street during the Durga Puja Festival in Kolkata, India on October 22, 2020. (Photo by Avishek Das/SOPA Images/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

McKensi Pascall is painted by artist Tom Sebazco at Human Connection Arts 8th Annual NYC Body Painting Day in Union Square Park on Sunday, July 25, 2021 in New York. (Photo by Brittainy Newman/AP Photo)

Sisters Martha Syrett, 6, left, and Etta Syrett, 4, right, measure one of Ian Paton's huge pumpkins at Pinetops Nurseries, Lymington, Hants, UK on October 5, 2025. An enormous pumpkin grown by a pair of green-fingered twins has smashed two world records – it is the heaviest and the longest pumpkin on the planet. Ian and Stuart Paton grew the pumpkin which weighed in at 2,819.8 pounds (1,278.8 kg) – the equivalent of about two bulls. (Photo by Ollie Thompson/Solent News & Photo Agency)

Brain-on-a-chip. Dazzling in green and magenta this image shows the nerve fibres (in green) produced by neural stem cells (in magenta) as they grow on a synthetic gel. Captured by a technique known as confocal microscopy, the image is part of research shedding light on how tinkering with the environment can affect the way in which nerve fibres grow. (Photo by Collin Edington and Iris Lee/Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Wellcome Images)

Local residents evacuate onto a street minutes after an earthquake in central Kathmandu, Nepal, May 12, 2015. A 7.3 magnitude earthquake killed at least 37 people and spread panic in Nepal on Tuesday, bringing down buildings already weakened by a devastating tremor less than three weeks ago and unleashing landslides in Himalayan valleys near Mount Everest. The earthquake was centered 76 km (47 miles) east of the capital in a hilly area close to the border with Tibet, according to coordinates provided by the U.S. Geological Survey. (Photo by Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)