Winners of WSC21: General category

The following post list the winners of WSC 2021.

The winning submission of General category shows us Complete and partial pseudomorphs of malachite over azurite spherical crystals. It was made by Masha Milshina.

Comment from the author:

Maria Milshina is a collector and mineralogical photographer with extensive experience. By education, Maria is a power engineer, and she has nothing to do with mineralogy by profession. Since 2013, she and her husband started collecting minerals and it has become a big family hobby. Over time, the collection grew, and today it has more than 3,000 specimens.

She started photographing minerals in 2018. Today, the main direction of her work is macro- and microphotography. The field of view of such images does not exceed 1-2 mm. She uses Fujifilm photocamera and lenses for mineral photography and microscopic lenses for macro and micro photography.

Her photos repeatedly won prizes in the Russian competition of mineralogical photography “Minerals in the lens”, and in 2021 the work “Copper Paints” was highly appreciated by the jury members and received the Grand Prix of the competition.

Today Maria is a professional mineralogical photographer. She often works with famous Russian mineralogists and illustrates their scientific articles and publications.

Maria is also the author of her own mineralogical calendar, which has been issued for several years in a row.

“I want to thank the jury for the appreciation of my work. For me it is very important, because it is the first time I won an international competition. I also congratulate all the winners and wish them further creative success!”

Comment from the jury:

Sometimes an image might look simple while conveying a sophisticated concept. Pseudomorphs are not a topic usually taught in schools, and many related files on our Commons were at limited resolution. In this snapshot, the presence of both colors of the two minerals highlights the ongoing substitution process, and such information is more engaging than presenting the simple final result. For this reason, it is an useful graphical support for an encyclopedic article.

Runners-up:

Additive colour mixing at the intersection of focused red (644 nm), green (532 nm) and blue (488 nm) lasers beam, visualised using graphite powder. Anatolii Kashchuk from Ukraine.
The IceCube Laboratory in the South Pole Winter with the night sky in the background. John Hardin from USA.
Drone equipped with spectrophotometer intended for monitoring of anthropogenic pollution in freshwater bodies. Taras Kazantsev from Ukraine.
The ALICE experiment at the LHC at CERN. The detector is opened for maintenance and upgrades. Andres Tiko from Estonia.
Tracking the movement of Peromyscus maniculatus with non-toxic fluorescent powder that glows under ultraviolet light. Midwesternmouse from USA.
A set of Marquois scales, shown stored in their case with other drawing instruments (top) and on their own (bottom). Justin Fisher USA.

Files were published under CC BY 4.0 license.