Meet the photographer behind the viral ant face close-up

Eugenijus Kavaliauskas. (Image credit: Dantis.net)

Lithuanian photographer Eugenijus Kavaliauskas showed the world ants in a light never seen before.

Last week, his close-up of an ant's face, that it made it look more like a monstrous creature than the miniscule insect we casually brush off every day, went viral on social media

The photo was one of the images of distinction in a microscopic photography contest organised by Nikon.

Terrifying close up of ant’s face wins photography distinction

Kavaliauskas is a wildlife photographer who has won several honours over the years. On his web portfolio are mostly pictures of birds of prey.

But he decided do something new four years ago, he told The Washington Post in an interview. A friend and fellow photographer inspired him to venture into photomicrography -- taking photos under a microscope.

He got the idea to take an ant's photo by observing them in a forest near his house. A lot of playing with lighting and shadows went into creating the terrifying effect the photo had on viewers.

This hellish-looking thing is real, and you've actually seen it before: This is what an ant looks like up close. This shot by photographer Eugenijus Kavaliauskas was magnified five times under a microscope.

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: Eugenijus Kavaliauskas/Nikon Small World pic.twitter.com/aNCTO2mbg2

— WIRED (@WIRED) October 20, 2022

For Kavaliauskas, the perception of horror or wonder depends upon an individual's point of view.

He said when he started microscopic photography, insects seemed monstrous to him. But now, his outlook had changed.

The ant photo is an example of of divine designs and the undiscovered miracles under our feet, he said.

Indeed many such wonderful photos were entered into the Nikon competition. The first prize went to a striking photo of a tiny hand of a Madagascar gecko's embryo.

The photo, that revealed an intricate network of veins and bones, required 63x magnification. It was the work of Grigorii Timin and Dr. Michel Milinkovitch from the University of Geneva.