News

Who can resist a great panorama shot? If you’re like us, you’ll want to marvel at the widescreen wonders that won in the 2023 Epson International Pano Awards—the 14th edition of the annual event. This year’s Open Photographer of the Year—Spanish photographer José D. Riquelme—will certainly blow you away with his winning image: an extraordinary drone shot of a bridge over a glacier-fed river in Iceland (above).

But it was another Spanish shooter whose work took our breath away: Merche Llobera’s “Jack Fish Art,” a fabulous image of a “tornado” of jacks shot in the waters of Mexico’s Cabo Pulmo National Park, was the winner in the Nature/Landscape category and the overall winner in the Amateur contest, earning her the title Amateur Photographer of the Year. Her two other images in the Amateur competition were also impressive: “Spirits of the Sea,” a beauiful capture of a pod of dolphins off South Africa barreling towards the camera; and “All You Can Eat,” a serene snap of a cormorant swimming between schools of fish, captured at Swanee Reef, Baja California Sur, Mexico.

There were nearly 4,500 entries overall, with more than 1,100 photographers from over 100 countries submitting their panoramic images, which had to have a minimum 2:1 aspect ratio. Qualifying entries could be cropped from a single image or stitched together from multiple images.

If you want to have your work recognized in one of the world’s most prestigious underwater competitions, make sure to enter this year’s DPG Masters Underwater Imaging Competition—and stand the chance to win some awesome gear and trip prizes! Panoramas—horizontal or vertical—are allowed!