The year is ending and it seems that many photography contests have agreed to offer us their results. This time it is the Australian The Epson International Pano Awards 2021, possibly the most important panoramic photography contest in the world. For this reason, the ones you are going to see can be considered the best images of this type of the year; and we are in luck because one more year there are several made by Spaniards.
This is the twelfth edition of a contest that this year declares a participation of 5,378 photos coming from 1,245 authors (professionals and amateurs) of 97 countries, numbers somewhat lower than last year, although the organization congratulates themselves because “Despite the pandemic and so many other challenges, this year’s entries were incredible. We are, once again, overwhelmed with the level of support from the participants“.
All of them opted for an interesting prize section, with products in kind (contributed by the Australian division of the well-known printing brand that gives the contest its name) and juicy cash prizes of up to $ 13,500 (for ten thousand from last year).
The biggest prize of all went to the American Joshua Hermann which takes the main title ‘Open Photographer of the Year‘for a set of three photos showing the beauty of nature in the swampy areas of South Louisiana. This work was chosen as the winner by the jury in the category Open Nature / Landscape, one of the two that make up the professional category of the contest (together with Built Environment / Architecture).
The other part of the contest is the branch amateur, which has the same two categories. In addition, there are several special awards such as the ‘Epson Digital Art Prize‘in which we have to congratulate ourselves because the winner is a Spaniard. Is named Manuel Enrique González Carmona and he has won the award for ‘Anatomy lesson’, the photo that you have seen on the cover and that he himself describes:
“Minerals, water and streams are the ingredients with which nature creates these ephemeral landscapes. With each period of rain the canvas is transformed. This canvas is actually a pool of toxic waste from a copper mine, located in the province of Huelva, which was captured from an aerial perspective. These ephemeral formations will disappear with the next heavy rains. I live only an hour away from this landscape, so I usually pay a visit every week. There are always completely new structures and details that allow you to make countless abstractions and figurations. I often have the feeling that an Abstract Expressionist painter has created a large canvas and that I am capturing fragments of this artwork with my drone. “
In addition, regarding the Spanish participation, we can also highlight the third places for Luis Cajete and Pedro Nogales in category ‘Amateur Nature / Landscape‘ and ‘Amateur Built Environment / Architecture‘(respectively). In addition, in almost all categories there are some other Spaniards selected within the TOP 50.
As always, we congratulate the winners and invite you to visit the contest website to see all winning images. Now we leave you with the winners of the main categories:
Winners of ‘The Epson International Pano Awards 2021’
Category ‘Open Nature / Landscape’
Winner and ‘2021 Open Photographer of the Year‘Joshua Hermann (USA) with’ Eternal Triangle ‘:
Runner-up: Gheorghe Popa (Romania) with ‘Poison Madness’:
Third place: Jinyi he (China) with ‘Purple Desert’:
Category ‘Open Built Environment / Architecture’
Winner: Mark Brierley (Australia) with ‘Tonal Intersection’:
Runner-up: Paul Dodd (Australia) with ‘Sydney Opera House’:
Third place: Cp Lau (Hong Kong) with ‘City cross’:
Category ‘Amateur Nature / Landscape’
Winner and ‘2021 Amateur Photographer of the Year’ Daniel Trippolt (Austria) with ‘Shining Night’:
Runner-up: Martin Podt (Holland) with ‘Dutch forest beauty’:
Third place: Luis Cajete (Spain) with ‘Color Explosion’:
Category ‘Amateur Built Environment / Architecture’
Winner: Florian Kriechbaumer (United Arab Emirates) with ‘City In The Clouds’:
Runner-up: Hin Kau Chan (Hong Kong) with ‘Radian’:
Third place: Pedro Nogales (Spain) with ‘The Watcher’:
Special Award ‘Epson Digital Art Prize’:
Manuel Enrique González Carmona (Spain) with ‘Anatomy lesson’:
Special Award ‘The RAW Planet Award’:
Marsel van Oosten (Holland) with ‘Hidden lake’:
Special Award ‘The Curator’s Award’:
Max Rive (Holland) with ‘The Mountain Dreamer’:
More information and photos | Epson International Pano Awards
Cover photo | ‘Anatomy lesson’ by Manuel Enrique González Carmona; special award ‘Epson Digital Art Prize’