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

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.

The mini side of ‘macro’

Ole Bielfeldt created this custom rig to catch impossibly fast ink droplets midflight. The contraption is only a bit larger than his head.…