Our traditional photo contest, FOTICMAB, is already a consolidated activity and receives every year a high participation. This year, we had three categories: scientific, artistic and humoristic. The artistic category was the one with the highest participation (27 photos), followed by our most favourite scientific category (12 photos) and a humoristic category, with (only) 5 photos. We also received one video in the ClowntICMAB video category!
The winner of the scientific category is the photo you can see above; «Nanoroses» by Albert Queraltó. «Beer Eiffel«, by Cristiano Matricardi won the artistic category, and «Mad Ma» by Jan Grzelak won the «humoristic» category. Albert Queraltó is a postdoc at the SUMAN group, Cristiano Matricardi is a PhD researcher at the NANOPTO group, and Jan Grzelak is a PhD researcher at the NN group. The winner of each cateogory received an ICMAB glassbottle, a diploma and the applauses of all our staff!
Let’s see the story behind each one of the winning and finalist photos:
Scientific Category
First prize: Nanoroses, by Albert Queraltó
«The picture was taken by Scanning Electron Microscopy of a YBCO superconducting film grown from chemical solutions, following a transient liquid assisted growth method. The colors reflect two different chemical compositions, the YBCO layer in green, and copper oxide segregations in red.»
«I would like to thank all the people that participated and that voted for my pictures. I feel very happy that my photos were selected among the high quality pictures that could be found in the contest.Thank you very much.» (Albert Queraltó)
Finalist: Alive-ICMAB, by Amanda Muñoz
«The last month of my master thesis consisted of staining worms with Oil Red O to study the lipid content of them. One morning I realised that my worms were fixed in some weird positions and some of them seemed letters. I put together some of these pictures and I obtained the ICMAB name. It was difficult to coordinate all of the worms, but now I can say I am a worm tamer.»
Finalist: Nanogun, by Cristiano Matricardi
«Nanostructured metallic film that wrapped up during the cross-section of a sample.»
Spetial Mention: Pt Jellyfish Invasion, by Sergi Martín Río
Artistic Category
First prize: Beer Eiffel, by Cristiano Matricardi
«A relaxing break, a cold beer and the sunlight, those are the ingredient of this photo. Light that pass through the glass of beer give rise to a series of reflection and refraction phenomena that interfere to each other generating shadows called «caustics». Those light fringes are in the most of the case of random shape, like in the bottom of a swimming pool. In this photo the angle of the sunlight and the position of the glass of beer produce a fancy shape that impressively resemble the tour Eiffel.»
Finalist: Dawn in Santa Pau, by Albert Queraltó
«The picture was taken at dawn in, a partially-cloud day. The location is the medieval town of Santa Pau (Girona), and the bicycle was in a private garden which the owner kindly let me access for the shot.»
Finalist: Pondering, by Albert Queraltó
«The statue can be found in the medieval town of Santa Pau. I took the picture because, at that time, it represented the quietness that one must experience when evaluating life.»
Finalist: Black Shadow, by Cristiano Matricardi
«I was bringing my camera to make good photos to my samples but the sunset and the human-like shapes of the Matgas bulding where more intersting. Expecially during the sunset, the bright and intense red color creates a strong contrast with the shapes giving rise to this captivating black shadow.»
Humoristic Category
First prize: Mad Ma, by Jan Grzelak (Starring Ma Zheng)
«The photo “Mad Ma” is my makeover of the “Mad Max” movie poster with my good friend and officemate Ma as the protagonist. We always make jokes together and it creates a very positive work atmosphere. I dedicate my prize to my friend Ma who kindly allowed me to upload this picture and I’m looking forward for his “revenge” in next year’s FOTICMAB.»
Finalist: Deadline coming, by Judit Tomsen
Finalist: Fluffy Unicorn, by Cristiano Matricardi
«Does this photo really deserve any explanation? He is an arguably sober unicorn who tris to hit something with an old broken broom. Isn’t he adorable?»
Video CLOWNTICMAB Category
First prize: El vaso relajado, by Amanda Muñoz and Natalia Martínez
«We watched Carlos Rios dancing the mango song to promote a healthy diet in Instagram. Therefore, we though it would be funny to adapt a scientific version of this challenge for the clowntICMAB contest. One Friday afternoon we practised and recorded it. It was a funny experience although it was difficult to keep the secret until the publication. We expected more competitors, so we challenge other groups to try to win us next year (just try it).»
