In a rarely publicized combination of art and science, Nikon has announced the winners of the 2013 Small World Photomicrography Competition, NBC News reported.

The competition is for photographers who capture weird images under a microscope and the stranger, the better. This year, Dutch artist/photographer Wim van Egmond won with his extreme close-up of Chaetoceros debillis.

Van Egmond's photo shows the tiny phytoplankton shining a golden aura and shaped in a vortex pattern covered in silica. The photo it set against a marine blue background and achieved the effect he was intending.

"I like to show the variety and beauty and weirdness of micro life," Van Egmond told NBC News.

Founded in 1974, the photomicrograph competition drew more than 2,000 entries from at least 80 countries. The 20 best entries were awarded credit toward Nikon camera gear, with van Egmond's $3,000 prize being the highest.

CLICK HERE to see the 20 finalists, honorable mentions and more.

"I will probably buy a good objective, a good lens," he said.

His photo subject was one of many suitors caught in a plankton net off the Dutch coast of Oosterschelde estuary. He said getting a good photo through a microscope is no easy feat and is a precise science.

"I collect a little bit of water, then I keep it cool. It will last for two or three days if you keep it in the fridge," Van Egmond explained.

After putting the subject on the slide and under the microscope, van Egmond says he has an hour to snap photos before the organism dies.

"If you wait too long, the living tissue will contract, then the organism isn't alive any more," he said. "You have an hour, but not much more. It's a race against the clock."

There is also a particular way he loads the subject onto the slide to produce the sharpest picture. He said he leaves just the right amount of space between the microscope slide and the cover slip that rest on top of it. Too little space will result in the organism being crushed and too much means a blurry photo.

Other top-20 finalist photos included the cartilage skeleton of a chameleon, a marine worm, an insect wrapped in a spider web and a lot more weirdness.