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)

A Taiwanese woman takes a photo of a Christmas tree decoration at a street in Taipei, Taiwan,13 December 2015. (Photo by Ritchie B. Tongo/EPA)

People take photos with the skyline of the central business district in Singapore on September 10, 2015. (Photo by Edgar Su/Reuters)

Woman carrying luggage walks along a railway track on the outskirts of Mumbai, India on November 12, 2020. (Photo by Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters)

A woman inspects artwork by Iranian artist Farrokh Mahdavi during a preview of the National Gallery of Victoria's (NGV) Triennial 2023, an exhibition featuring work by over 120 contemporary artists, designers and collectives, in Melbourne on December 1, 2023. (Photo by William West/AFP Photo)

A couple enjoys viewing illuminated autumn leaves with projection mapping at Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden during a preview at the garden in Tokyo, Japan on November 22, 2023. The illumination will start on 22 November through 03 December 2023. (Photo by Kimimasa Mayama/EPA/EFE)

A man stands in front of a display with an artificial coral inside the Davos Congress Center at the eve of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Sunday, January 15, 2023. The site specific data sculpture by media artist Refik Anadol based on approximately one billion coral images processed by machine learning classification models. The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is taking place in Davos from Jan. 16 until Jan. 20, 2023. (Photo by Markus Schreiber/AP Photo)

Visitors walk past a train-shaped ice sculpture ahead of the 31st Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival in the northern city of Harbin, Heilongjiang province, January 4, 2015. The winter festival will be officially opened on January 5, 2015. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)