Insect diversity
Pål Hermansen of Norway was awarded the overall winner of the competition for this glorious photo showing an assortment of insects. Late last year, Hermansen discovered that a lamp outside his house was defective and that it had been trapping flying insects.
“I emptied the lamp and spread the contents onto a large light-table I had left over from my slide days,” he explained in a statement. “I used a weak flashlight to light the details from above. I wanted to express the chaos and diversity of this discovery, but also to find some kind of composition,” said Hermansen, adding that “it’s a visual reminder of the important and extreme diversity of animals around us that we take for granted.”
The photo also earned Hermansen the top prize in the Insects category.
