Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas's Image

Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas (Germany) carefully rolls over a log in his local forest to see fruiting bodies of slime mould and a tiny springtail.

Alexis had to work fast to take this photograph, as springtails can jump many times their body length in a split second. He used a technique called focus stacking, combining 36 images, each with a different area in focus.

Editor and Chair of the Jury Kathy Moran commends the skills of the photographer. “Macro is challenging when you’re trying to capture one species much less two. To see them both photographed with such detail is exceptional. The moment at which the photographer made the frame it feels as if the slime mould and springtail are in conversation.”

Springtails are barely two millimetres long (less than a tenth of an inch). They are found alongside slime moulds and leaf litter all over the world. They feed on microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi, improving soil by helping organic matter to decompose.