Small and Round in Nature

What an amazing image! The detail is astonishing and demonstrates again the wonders of nature, usually hidden away. I also love that the enemy, one predator in the form of a spider, is close up and will destroy some of this fragile 'still life' any time. It shows the precarious nature of survival in the wild. There couldn't be a better winner for this contest. Congratulations and thank you.

When I wrote the brief for this contest, I really never thought of pearls - they are, after all jewellery.. It was only when reading your description that I realised that pearls are a perfect example of something small and round in nature. Your image shows the differences in colour so well, something you never see in strands of pearl necklace in the shops. Great use of colour as background.

Before I joined photocrowd, I had no real idea about macro photography, but my eyes have been truly opened over the past few years. Here is another stunning example of the wonderful life we usually don't see. The composition and colours are exquisite, on top of the clear focused image. We connect slime with something nasty and horrid - not something so ey-catching!

Waterdrops featured quite heavily in this contest, and rightly so. It was this image, however, that appealed the most to me. It's is simplicity, just the single rows of 'pearls' around the edges of the leaves, combined with the exquisite colouring that gave it the edge. Wonderful, and very elegant looking.

I love to watch frogspawn in our pond at home and was delighted to see quite a few great examples while I was judging. This is my favourite as it is only concentrating on the spawn, so that nothing can distract the eye. In my view it pays of that you have focused on the centre, and blurred the edges as it gets the view totally concentrated on a small area, which has an even greater effect.