Close-up Photographer of the Year crowns grisly hyena and zebra image

A spotted hyena carrying the severed head of a zebra has taken top honors in Close-up Photographer of the Year’s Death & Decay challenge, a frame that trades polished nature photography for the raw mechanics of survival. Willem Kruger made the winning image in Kruger National Park, South Africa, after he and his wife came across three hyenas during an early-morning game drive. One animal was carrying the zebra head toward their vehicle before veering off into the bush.

The image fits the challenge’s brief exactly. CUPOTY said Death & Decay was the sixth themed challenge in its community-driven program, and that it featured 14 winners and finalists. The competition explicitly warns viewers that some of the images may be disturbing, a caution that feels less like a disclaimer than a description of the subject matter. CUPOTY called Kruger’s photo a visceral reminder that almost nothing in nature goes to waste.

The themed challenge sits alongside the main annual Close-up Photographer of the Year contest, which was founded in 2018 by Tracy and Daniel Calder, a husband-and-wife photography team based in Winchester, UK. Since then, Tracy Calder said the project has received more than 40,000 entries from around the world. CUPOTY 7 alone drew more than 12,000 entries from 63 countries and was judged by 22 experts. The main contest awards £2,500 to the overall winner, while the themed challenge winner receives £300, roughly $400, plus a feature in the 2026 CUPOTY ebook.

The rest of the Death & Decay lineup pushed the same idea from different angles. Juan J. Gonzalez Ahumada took second place with a common toad embracing a dead female in southern Spain, an image CUPOTY described as documenting a likely suffocation death during breeding activity. Gaël Modrak placed third with a dead waterfowl chick underwater near Paris, made with a wide-angle lens to catch light filtering through murky water. Other finalists included a fishing spider feeding on a froglet in Madagascar, a kestrel plucking a sparrow in Massachusetts, and stark close-up studies of dead trees and insect exoskeletons.

CUPOTY said the challenge winners were announced on April 10, 2026, with CUPOTY 8 opening for entries in May 2026 and the next themed challenge set to open on November 1, 2026. For macro and close-up photographers, the message is hard to miss: the most competition-worthy subjects are not always orchids, butterflies, or dew drops. Sometimes they are the dead flower on a kitchen table, the mold on forgotten fruit, or the brutal clarity of decay itself.