The winners of the 16th Epson International Pano Awards have been announced with ultra-wide panoramas clearly the flavour of the 2025 competition. Alessandro Cantarelli from Italy took top honours as the 2025 Open Photographer of the Year (also winning the Nature/Landscape category).
Alessandro Cantarelli hit the Jackpot with his exceptional ultra-widepanoramas this year, taking out top honours as the 2025 Open Photographer of the Year at The 16th Epson International Pano Awards. This year's awards saw a number of representations of the Northern Lights, coinciding with the 11 year solar cycle.
All of Cantarelli’s entries - Last Fireworks, Jackpot and Mann – caught the eyes of the judges and Epson Australia MD, Craig Heckenberg, noes: “The Pano Awards entries are always exceptional, but this year the creativity has been taken to the next level. It’s great to see so many more wide and ultra-wide panoramic shots this year, a format close to our hearts, as they are able to be truly and properly represented by Epson wide-format photo printers.”
Cantarelli is an Italian fine-art landscape photographer known worldwide for his pioneering work in extreme panoramic landscapes. Through years of experimentation and fieldwork, he developed a unique panoramic technique capable of merging multiple perspectives into a single immersive vision.
Other key awards include The Epson Digital Art Prize which is decided by the executive team at Epson Australia from the top 50 entries in the Open competition. In addition to their creativity, these entries must show excellence in digital post processing as well as exceptional photographic technique. This year’s prize winner was Daniel Viñé from Spain who also took out the RAW Planet Award for his Cathedral of Shadows, Hanksville, Utah representation.
Winner of the Epson Digital Art Prize, Daniel Viñé Garcia Spain - The 16th Epson International Pano AwardsFollowing the addition of Epson Singapore as joint major sponsor in 2024, it was fitting the Pano Awards Southeast Asia Open Photographer of the Year 2025 winner, William Chua, is from Singapore himself. Meanwhile, the Amateur Photographer of the Year award went to USA entrant, Kevin Nyun, with his Altiplano Landscape piece shot in the Bolivian highland.
In other awards, the VR/360 winner was Christoph Simon from Germany for his panorama taken on a freezing March night in the high-temperature region of Hverarönd in northern Iceland. The Curator's Award went to Chris Byrne from the USA for ELYSIUM. Pano Awards Curator, David Evans, says: “The global reach of the awards has never been stronger and the diversity, creativity and technical excellence on display reaffirm the panoramic format as one of the most powerful storytelling mediums in contemporary photography.”
As always, entrants this year competed for thousands of dollars in cash and hardware prizes from main sponsors Epson Australia and Epson Southeast Asia, with the judging panel made up of some of the world's top panoramic photographers and industry professionals.
Heckenberg adds: “The Pano Awards entrants are an inspiration for all photographers of all skill levels. At Epson we pride ourselves on embodying innovation and creativity, hence why we continue to support and sponsor these unique awards.”
Epson International Pano Awards
