Visions of science winners chosen

The winners of the 2005 Novartis and The Daily Telegraph photographic awards - visions of science - have been announced.
The winning images were chosen on their ability to explain scientific phenomena, illustrate scientific data, or simply show the beauty of science.

This Culex mosquito is emerging from its pupa. A single female can lay some 400 eggs, which are deposited on the surface of still water. By Dr Christian Laforsch.

The winners were selected from over 2,200 entrants, and judging caused fierce debate. Judge and TV presenter, Adam Hart-Davis said: “the variety of subjects and styles was splendid and picking the winners was, as ever, extremely difficult, with judges noisily championing a particular favourite photograph.”

The wide ranging subject matter of the images across the five main categories – action, close-up, people, concepts and art – included a view of a hatching mosquito, an image of cancer cell weaving its way through a filter, and an artist’s impression of a migraine attack. The overall winner, and winner of the close-up category, was an image of salt and pepper taken by David McCarthy that he hoped would give an insight into the everyday products we use on our food.


This image of a peppercorn and a grain of sea salt by David McCarthy pleased judge Adam Hart-Davis. “Delightfully simple - the sort of image that seems obvious when you’ve seen it, but none of us had,” he said.


The entrants’ background and methods also varied greatly. Winners included professors, doctors, researchers, artists and photographers.


This image of a cancer cell moving down a pore in a filter was taken by Anne Weston of cancer research UK. She told Laboratory News: “The picture formed part of an ongoing project with Dr John Marshall who has a specific interest in Recessive Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa (RDEB) for which the life threatening aspect of the disease is that many of the patients develop skin cancer.”