Meet Rithved Girish: The 14-year-old who used a 10-year-old camera to macrophotograph bees and won Young Photographer of the Year

Macrophotography into the hives of bees and burrows of ants is what truly reveals the magic and miracles of nature.

And when this is done by a child as young as a 14-year-old, it turns the pages of the entire story.

Meet Rithved Girish, the 14-year-old macro prodigy

Rithved Girish, a 14-year-old based in the United Arab Emirates with roots in Bengaluru and Kerala, India, just bagged the Young Close-up Photographer of the Year 7 for his stunning shot "Guardians of the Hive."

Living in the UAE but vacationing in India during school breaks, he hunts wildlife in farms, yards, and wild edges. This Bengaluru teen beat over 12,000 entries from 63 countries in the world's top macro contest.

What makes his image special

His prize image captures stingless bees, likely Tetragonula sp., guarding their nest's mud-resin tube entrance in Mezhathur Kerala.

He kept the image quite natural, and did not lure or poke - he just waited, capturing their living shield like a natural sculpture. Shot on a decade-old Nikon D850 DSLR with a third-party macro lens, it proves skills trump shiny tech, according to a Digital Camera World report.
This is not his first achievement; he was runner-up at Wildlife Photographer of the Year, the "Oscars of the Wild."

More about the contest that spotlights the small organisms

Close-up Photographer of the Year (CUPOTY7), run from the UK, drew 12,000+ images across insects, underwater, plants, fungi, and more.

Why are stingless bees important and what sets this shot apart

These tiny tropical pollinators, sans stings, vitalise crops like chilies, tomatoes, and spices in India and beyond. Greenhouse boosts, safer than honeybees in crowds, yet habitat loss, pesticides, and climate change threaten them. Over 75% of food crops need such insects; declines mean pricier, poorer eats.

Rithved's frame spotlights "quiet warriors" sustaining us, turning walls into fortresses.