Common Wildflower’s Self-Pollination Wins Nikon Small World in Motion 2025
Sep 24, 2025
Dunja Đuđić
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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Nikon has announced the winners of its Nikon Small World in Motion 2025. As you probably know, this video contest celebrates the breathtaking choreography of microscopic life. Now in its 15th year, it’s a showcase of visual science marrying artistry with innovation. And this year’s first-place winner did just that, using focus-stacked time-lapse to capture a quiet miracle: a flower pollinating itself.
First launched in 2011, the Small World in Motion contest builds on Nikon’s legacy of celebrating photomicrography, originally begun in 1974. It acknowledges how video has become an essential storytelling medium for researchers and artists alike.
This year’s competition received 325 video entries from 34 countries, reflecting a global passion for microscopic imaging. The judging panel included noted science communicators, biologists, and engineers, such as Deboki Chakravarti, Jeff DelViscio, and Liz Roth-Johnson, among others.
First Place – Jay McClellan, A Blooming Marvel of Self-Pollination
The top honor went to Jay McClellan, a retired engineer from Saranac, Michigan. He brought the often-overlooked world of wildflowers to life with his video of thymeleaf speedwell (Veronica serpyllifolia) completing its own pollination process. In stunning time-lapse detail, we watch the delicate dance: the flower opens to the morning sun, stamens grow and curl, and the plant completes fertilization – all without a single bee in sight.
“This isn’t some exotic plant you’d need to travel the world to find,” Jay said. “It’s a common ‘weed’ that might be growing right under your feet.”
To capture such fleeting beauty, Jay combined expert motion control with custom-built hardware and meticulous focus stacking. As he explains:
“Running the focus-stacking overnight is like waiting for Christmas morning – you never know whether you’ll get a disappointment or something amazing.”
This marks McClellan’s fourth video featured in the Nikon Small World in Motion competition. He also earned an honorable mention this year for a mesmerizing video showing dissolution and crystallization of metal salts. He previously secured second place in 2024 for his video of evaporating water droplets on butterfly wings.
Eric Flem, Nikon Instruments’ Senior Manager of Communications, said:
“This year’s winners showcase the extraordinary choreography of life unfolding at a scale beyond ordinary sight. Jay McClellan’s video perfectly encapsulates the artistry and purpose of this competition.”
Top 5 Winners of Nikon Small World in Motion 2025
The top five winners of Nikon Small World in Motion 2025 truly showcase the fusion of science and cinematic storytelling. Second place went to Benedikt Pleyer for his enchanting video of volvox algae swimming inside a droplet of water, cleverly placed within the central opening of a Japanese 50 Yen coin and captured using darkfield microscopy at 50X magnification. In third place, Dr. Eric Vitriol offered a visually rich and scientifically valuable look at actin and mitochondria in mouse brain tumor cells through super-resolution microscopy at 40X.
Penny Fenton secured fourth place with her darkfield video of a tardigrade navigating a volvox colony, magnified 20 times. Rounding out the top five was Dr. Alvaro Migotto, who captured the delicate moment of a newborn sea urchin walking along the seabed, using darkfield microscopy at 10X magnification. Each of these entries draws us into the hidden microcosm of life, revealing cellular interactions and early-life movements that are as mesmerizing as they are meaningful.
Honorable Mentions
This year’s honorable mentions include time-lapses of fungal fusion, neuron development, sea urchin metamorphosis, red blood cells flowing through rat muscles, and even a mantis laying eggs. Returning winners like Benedikt Pleyer and Dr. Alexandre Dumoulin (2023’s first-place winner) also made the list with fresh contributions.
We bring you some of the honorable mentions below, and make sure to check out the full gallery and technical details of all winners at Nikon Small World’s official website.
Hat thrower fungus (Pilobolus) on rabbit dung
Technique: Image Stacking | Magnification: 5X
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- Groundbreaking image of brain tumor cells wins 50th Nikon Small World competition
- Common Wildflower’s Self-Pollination Wins Nikon Small World in Motion 2025
Dunja Đuđić
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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