24 Winners Of Epson International Pano Awards

Showcasing the work of panoramic photographers worldwide, the Epson International Pano Awards, one of the largest global competitions of its kind, has announced the amazing 2024 winners.

For the 15th edition this year, the contest considered 4,529 entries from professional and amateur photographers in 95 countries. Entrants competed for a cash prize of $15,000 and photographic equipment prizes from sponsors Epson Australia and Epson Southeast Asia.

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This year, the contest enjoyed a 70{14ff71e4f273baab5bec81dc525908f6c873497a5ac78f00770a25913b288d25} increase in entries from Southeast Asia including Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.

The overall winner of the 2024 Open Photographer of the Year and also the Nature/Landscape category is international landscape photographer Kelvin Yuen of Hong Kong for his entries Power of Nature, Wilderness and Mountain of Divinity.

Describing Power of Nature (below), Yuen said “the primary goal was to capture the iconic mountains of Guilin, renowned for its karst formations. On the day I took this photo, I woke up at 3 a.m. and was supposed to hike up for the sunrise. However, a heavy thunderstorm struck out of nowhere, so I decided to shoot the thunderstorm.”

See all the winning and finalist photos here.

“I took 700 photos of which more than 40 were lightning shots,” Yuen noted. “This photo is my favorite as the lightning flashing in the middle illuminates the layers of the mountains.”

“Last winter, while most hikers left the mountain area in Patagonia, I spent a month waiting for a snowy mountain view,” Yuen said of his patience-infused work. “When a snowstorm arrived and the temperature dropped to below -20°C, I had my ideal shooting conditions.

The hillside was covered with snow and became hardly visible. I fell into the gaps several times and needed 10 hours to reach the spot at the cliff edge for the Milky Way shot. This panorama was created by stitching 44 shots together.”

Special Prizewinning Photos

Nguyễn Tấn Tuấn is the overall runner-up in the Open competition, and winner of both the Open Built Environment category and the Epson Digital Art Prize for this image of a traditional golden chrysanthemum farm in Sadec, Dong Thap, Vietnam.

Farmers have relied on nature to grow flowers. Sadec was formed on the tributaries of the Mekong River. The farmers build high trellises to grow the flowers and avoid flooding. They use boats to transport the plants during harvest season in the last lunar month of the year.

The Amateur winner & Nature/Landscape category winner is Diego Manrique Diez for the Aurora Borealis shots “Green Storm,” “Green Dance” and “Spiral.”

“In this breathtaking and extreme panorama,” Diez explains, “we got immersed in a natural paradise of lush mountains and wild beaches in Northern Norway. I remember that night as if it were yesterday. The intense cold was taking hold and I was the only one left on that spot when the sky began to open up, followed by a majestic aurora borealis.”

“The Kimberley in far north Western Australia comes alive in the wet season,” Tom Putt says. “For that reason, I had scheduled a seven-day helicopter safari to hopefully capture the incredible rainstorms. As we were confronted with this menacing beast, I instructed the pilot to move to the south to avoid being caught up in the downpour. The twisting and turning bends of the King River provided the ideal foreground.”

Southern Asia Photographer Of The Year

Natural Landscapes

Built Environments

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