Up Close: 2012 Wellcome Image Awards

16 photos

The Darkroom will take you Up Close in a new series featuring images and techniques that truly augment our perceptual power, altering our understanding and appreciation of the world. First up are sixteen winning photos from the 2012 Wellcome Image Awards, which highlight the best in medical and microscopic photography, and is sponsored by the London-based Wellcome Trust charitable foundation. This remarkable set of photos includes everything from magnified views of a moth fly to a human brain during a surgical procedure to the building blocks of your morning cup of coffee (caffeine crystals) – all as you’ve never seen them before.

Photos courtesy of and captions provided by Wellcome Images.

The 2012 Wellcome Image Awards were selected by a panel of judges and announced on June 20 in London. A photograph of a human brain, taken during surgery to treat a patient with epilepsy by UCL’s Institute of Neurology’s Robert Ludlow, was chosen as the overall winner out of the 16 top images. To learn more about the Wellcome Image Awards and this year’s winning photographs, “chosen for their scientific and technical merit as much as for their aesthetic appeal,” visit the links below.

ALSO SEE:

Official site: 2012 Wellcome Image Awards galley (contains additional information on winning photographs)

Techniques used by Wellcome Image photgraphers

Wellcome Image Awards: 1997-2011

Wellcome Images on Twitter