Nestled within a rebuilt inkjet printer, droplets of ink hang suspended above a page. Seen through a microscope, the droplets reveal how an inkjet printer produces crisp, uniform letters. Ole Bielfeldt, a design student in Cologne, Germany, has been photographing the microscopic world since about 2021.
His interest began as a quarantine hobby, when an old school microscope from his attic gave him a way to explore while stuck at home during the pandemic. His printer image won first place in the 2026 Nikon Small World photomicrography competition. To capture the winning photo, he built a custom rig that moved the paper instead of the printer’s ink nozzles, keeping the nozzles stationary and in focus.
Ole Bielfeldt created this custom rig to catch impossibly fast ink droplets midflight. The contraption is only a bit larger than his head. Swipe through to see what word the printer was spitting out ink to spell.
Bielfeldt estimates that the droplets traveled at nearly 20 meters per second — too fast for even his best slow-motion camera to resolve. To freeze their motion, Bielfeldt worked in darkness, illuminating the scene with a single brief flash. He instructed the printer to repeatedly spell out “macro,” a nod to his social media handle, macrofying.
Before this project, a printer was “like magic,” Bielfeldt says. Photographing its inner workings helped him understand how it operates. Bielfeldt no longer takes the magic printers spit out for granted.
His photograph is one of 86 images recognized in this year’s competition, whose winners were announced October 21. Here are some of our other favorites. This pollen-dusted jumping spider offers a close look at the bristling hairs and some of its eight eyes that are easy to miss with the naked eye.
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