The winners of the 2025 and now 16th Epson International Pano awards have been announced and amongst an abundance of ultra-wide panoramas, the overall winner of the 2025 Open Photographer of the Year and the Nature/Landscape category is Alex Wides from Italy for his entries Last Fireworks, Jackpot and Mann.
Describing Last Fireworks Wides said, “As the sun went down, the sky literally exploded. Layer after layer of clouds lit up, painting the desert with fire and gold. Using my Sony A7 IV with a fisheye lens on a tripod, I captured a full multi-exposure sequence at f/8 and ISO 100, rotating carefully around the nodal point to create a seamless 360° panorama.”
Wides 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.
About Jackpot, Wides says, “After finishing tours on Senja Island, I hiked up to the shoot location hoping for a good weather window. When I opened the tent on the last try, I hit the Jackpot. The sky exploded in a spectacular half hour of Northern Lights. This was a perfect reward after years of waiting.”
Describing Mann, a 270° panorama captured in the Italian Dolomites, Wides says, “For years I’ve been fascinated by the way lunar light reveals every texture of the snow, every pattern shaped by the wind. To bring this vision to life, I worked through the night at -15°C, using a Sony A6600 with a fisheye lens at 10mm, f/5.6, 10 seconds, ISO 1250, building a 270° panorama in the freezing wind.”
The Epson International Pano Awards has grown and continues to be the largest global competition for panoramic photography as it showcases the work of panoramic photographers worldwide. As always, entrants this year competed for thousands of dollars in cash and hardware prizes from main sponsors Epson Australia and Epson Southeast Asia.
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.
The winner of The Epson Digital Art Prize 2025 was Daniel Viñe from Spain who commented on his image saying, “In this coastal village of Vietnam, survival is woven in silence. These women, working in morning shade and salt-laden air, are the unseen guardians of sustenance. The nets they mend are not mere tools, but lifelines binding sea and community together.”
Epson Australia MD, Craig Heckenberg, said, “The Pano Awards entries are always exceptional and 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. 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.”
Daniel Viñe also took out the RAW Planet Award for Cathedral of Shadows, Hanksville, Utah which he describes as, “Witnessing a fleeting alignment of light and form revealing the sun blazing on one side, the vast shadow stretching on the other and the raw, timeless silence of Utah in between.”
As Heckenberg mentioned this year’s entries saw a prevalence of ultra-wide panoramas, led by the overall winner Alex Wides, who has many such images in the top 50. There were also increasingly innovative perspectives including very low angles, very close up subjects, capturing movement and of course, aerial photography. Other interesting and sometimes unusual subjects included abstracts such as flower patterns captured by polarised light after hydrolysis and crystallisation and intimate nature vignettes such as snails, a beetle and fireflies. There were also far more shots of the Northern Lights than usual coinciding with the 11-year solar cycle maximum.
Southeast Asia also continued to be very well represented following the addition of Epson Singapore as joint major sponsor in 2024, with the award for The Pano Awards Southeast Asia Open Photographer of the Year 2025 going to William Chua from Singapore. Chua said, “I have witnessed the wildebeest migration countless times and it never ceases to amaze me. For this image, what caught my attention was a lone wildebeest turning back amidst the frenzy. In that instant, I knew that was the shot I wanted.”
The Amateur Photographer of the Year First place Nature/Landscape category went to Kevin Nyun, USA for his entries entitled The Altiplano Landscape, Frozen and Remnants.
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.
Curator of The Pano Awards is David Evans and the Curator’s Award went to Chris Byrne from the USA for ELYSIUM. David Evans said, “Each year, the boundaries of panoramic photography are pushed further and 2025 has proven no exception. This year’s collection reveals an extraordinary number of ultra-wide panoramas – sweeping, immersive works that transport viewers deep into the landscapes that inspired them.
Meanwhile, photographers continue to venture far and wide, uncovering both ‘hot’ rising in focus locations such as Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Tibet and revisiting beloved destinations like Iceland, the Dolomites, Argentina and the Lofoten Islands.
Following the strong participation from Southeast Asia and the continued support of Epson Singapore alongside Epson Australia, the global reach of the awards has never been stronger. The diversity, creativity and technical excellence on display reaffirm the panoramic format as one of the most powerful storytelling mediums in contemporary photography.”
The judging panel for The Epson International Pano awards includes some of the world’s top panoramic photographers and industry professionals.
To view all the winning and top image galleries go to: https://thepanoawards.com/2025-winners-gallery