[imagesource: Bernhard Schubert/Close Up Photographer of the Year 2020]

If you’re sitting at your desk counting the minutes until the weekend, this should cheer you up.

It’s Friday, the end of the workweek, and time to treat your eyes to something that isn’t a spreadsheet or a to-do list.

It’s a wild and wonderful world out there, some of which can only be seen when you combine expert photography skills, and a willingness to look at things from a new perspective.

Earlier this week we brought you our favourite shots from the Drone Photo Awards which captured life from up high.

Now, let’s take it to the other extreme with the winners of the Close Up Photographer of the Year competition, 2020.

We’ll start with the image above, per The Guardian, snapped by Bernhard Schubert during a night walk through the Kubah national park on the island of Borneo. It’s a cat gecko, which gets its name from the way it curls its tail around itself when it’s sleeping.

Excuse me while I come to terms with how cute that is.

The overall winner of this year’s competition was Galice Hoarau for this shot of an eel larva off the coast of Indonesia, taken during a blackwater dive:

More from the competition for you to enjoy:

Image: Butterflies feasting on the nectar of carefully composed flowers in France.
Photograph: Emelin Dupieux

Image: Shot on a smartphone, an amazingly detailed microshot of a glassworm.
Photograph: Andrei Savitsky

Image: A raft spider skimming across a marshy pool in search of prey in Plesheevo Lake national park, Russia. Photograph: Svetlana Ivanenko

Image: A bufo bufo, or common toad, spotted swimming close to the surface at Buèges spring in Occitania, France. Photograph: Mathieu Foulquie

Image: Ice crystals formed when moisture became trapped inside a faulty thermopane window.
Photograph: Edwin Giesbers

Image: A pool ingeniously filled with clear water in the middle of Lake Kerniki in Greece enabled this shot of feeding pelicans. Photograph: Bence Mate

Look hard enough, and close enough, and you’ll find beauty in just about everything nature has to offer.

Happy Friday, friends.

May the weekend be merry.

[source:guardian]