Thank you to all the photographers that shared their best photo showing the tiny miracles we find in nature in the Small Things In Nature Photo Contest with chances for the winner to pick the prize: a Canon EOS 70D or Nikon D5300!

"I am always amazed at how many wonderful entries are submitted to the ViewBug photo contests! It was a real pleasure to go through and see so many worthy photos. It also makes it a real challenge to narrow down the field! What I am looking for are those images that make me stop and stay for awhile and really look at the story and technical details as to what is happening. It could be the colors, patterns, tones, composition, and emotional impact that get my attention. But I am always keeping in mind the theme of the contest... “Small Things In Nature”. Thank you to everyone that entered." - Laurie Rubin

A special thanks to friend and professional photographer Laurie Rubin for her collaboration as a guest judge in this photo contest. Laurie is an international award-winning photographer specializing in wildlife and nature photography. Her passion for photography as well as a career working for software companies, has combined her talents for teaching and sharing photography, from capture to post-processing. She currently has one of her prints displayed at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.

Grand Jury Winner

"This photo of an adorable little baby Jackrabbit really got my attention! It just grabbed me right away as I was looking through all the other images and I couldn’t help but laugh and have a big smile on my face after seeing this precious little one! With animal images, I am always looking for a nice sharp eye and this one delivers that, plus there is a nice catch light was well. It’s sharp where it needs to be... on the face. Lovely composition and a great eye-to-eye perspective. There is so much to love about this image. Congratulations!" - Laurie Rubin

Runner Up

"Here is another image of a small ladybug at eye-level. Really lovely tones throughout with that pop of red against the green. There is a bit of a struggle for this little bug to make her way up to a higher vantage point and the bending over of the head of the mushroom has a nice curve along with the curve of the ladybug. Very nice image!" - Laurie Rubin

Runner Up

"What a precious moment captured! This is worthy of mentioning because of the gesture of the Black Skimmer chick reaching out to ‘hug’ the mother. Getting moments like this takes more then just luck... I bet there was a lot of practice and a lot of images shot so that when this happened, the photographer was ready to press the shutter with all the right settings and focus in place. Very cute!" - Laurie Rubin

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