Hilda Canter-Lund 2024

This award was established by the British Phycological Society in recognition of Hilda Canter-Lund, whose stunning photographs will be known to many members. Her photomicrographs of freshwater algae combined high technical and aesthetic qualities whilst still capturing the quintessence of the organisms she was studying.

Congratulations to all that made the shortlist, the competition was strong this year, and the BPS thanks everyone who submitted images and voted for their favorites.

2024 Winners

Macro category – Audrey Sarin: “Cathedral“

Audrey (she/her) is an American marine researcher with a lifelong love of the ocean. She spent the last few years in Central California, including Monterey, California, where this photo was taken. In Monterey, she researched sea urchin life history to inform kelp forest recovery planning as an intern at the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and a student at Moss Landing Marine Labs. Audrey is an avid diver and counts kelp forest ecosystems as her favorite to explore and photograph. She is currently a PhD student in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution joint program studying the effects of noise on benthic marine invertebrates.

Taken in Monterey Bay, California, this photo captures light filtering through tall stipes of Macrocystis. The sun’s rays illuminate the kelp forest below. Streaming from high above, the lines of the photo center the ocean’s natural beauty in the same way chapel ceilings elevate the divine.

Micro category – Michaela Hittorf: “Welcome to funky town“

Michaela Hittorf is a PhD student at the Institute of Microbiology at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. In her PhD project she works with intracellular parasites (i.e., Phytomyxea) of brown algae and plants and mainly focuses on the cell biology of these interactions. She always had a passion for microscopy and in her free time she likes to do photography and to draw, so this was the perfect opportunity to combine two passions: science and art. Long ago she fell in love with the sea and its inhabitants, but she still finds it very funny to work with marine organisms among the Alps in a landlocked country.

The parasite Maullinia ectocarpii in its brown algal host Macrocystis pyrifera. The antibody labelled brown algal cell wall is shown in green and the nuclei of the brown alga and the parasite are labelled with Hoechst (blue). Autofluorescence of algal chloroplasts (pink) can sometimes be troublesome when working with fluorescent dyes, but here it nicely completes the image. This image was taken with a Nikon Eclipse Ti2-E fluorescence microscope and is a maximum projection of a z-stack.

2024 Highly Commended

Macro category

Maisie Roy-Musor: “Alaria in the morning“

Maisie is a Seaweed Biologist at Industrial Plankton in British Columbia, Canada, working on seed stock cultivation in seaweed bioreactors for kelp and red algae. A chemist turned phycologist, Maisie has always been fascinated by the diverse traits and strategies seaweeds use to interact with and thrive in their environments, particularly through metabolism and biogeochemistry. In her free time, she can usually be found reading, playing folk guitar, or out exploring nature with friends!

Even in the intertidal, an early morning sunrise can bring a sense of stillness. Soft light filters through the mountains and trees, speckling the shore and illuminating the vibrant but often discrete hues of Alaria marginata clinging to the rocky shore. This image was taken at Botanical Beach in British Columbia using an iPhone 14 camera.

Micro category

John Huisman: “A heavy load: Achnanthes brevipes“

John Huisman is the Curator of the Western Australian Herbarium (Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions) and also undertakes taxonomic research into the Western Australian marine plants. Other than a two year sojourn to the Hawaiian Islands, he has pursued a goal of a State-wide marine Flora since moving to Western Australia in 1985. John has written ten books and over 200 articles and chapters describing various seaweed related topics, including the recent pictorial guide, ‘Marine Plants of Australia (revised and updated)’ in 2023, which depicts over 640 species, mostly photographed in situ.

Achnanthes brevipes is an epiphytic diatom that forms short chains and is very common in the Swan Estuary, Perth, Western Australia. The photograph shows dense clusters growing on the green alga Chaetomorpha and was taken on a Nikon 80i microscope, using darkfield illumination, and a 20x objective. Several images were taken at different focal planes and then stacked in Adobe Photoshop. For scale the frame width is approximately 600 µm.