10 Winners From the Epson International Pano Awards

The 17th Epson International Pano Awards have announced its 2026 winners, with Spanish photographer Daniel Viñé Garcia named Open Photographer of the Year.

Garcia took the top honor in the Open category on the strength of a portfolio that spans the high Andes and the Argentine Puna. His winning image, The Sleeping Giant, was made at Parinacota Volcano in Chile, rising more than 6,300 meters (20,670 feet) and paired with the neighboring Pomerape at over 6,200 meters (20,340 feet).

“The original capture was a 360-degree aerial panorama made from 33 individual exposures,” Garcia says. “After one last burst of light, the landscape gradually took on magenta tones, wrapping the volcanoes and the high-altitude lakes in a particularly special atmosphere. I later refined the framing from the full panorama to concentrate the final composition on the volcanoes, the light and the shapes of the landscape.”

His work also earned places in the Open Nature and Landscape category with Cathedral of Starlight, a night panorama made at around 3,100 meters in the Argentine Puna and My Perfect Night, photographed on a salt flat in Catamarca at more than 3,300 meters.

This year’s competition drew 4,084 entries from photographers in 93 countries, an increase of 19 percent on 2025. Entries were divided into 2,122 in the Open competition and 1,962 in the Amateur competition, with the field including 680 entries in the new Aerial categories.

The Epson Digital Art Prize, which is decided by the executive team at Epson Australia from the top 50 entries in each category of the Open competition, was won by Preeti and Prashant Chacko. In addition to their creativity, these entries must show excellence in digital post-processing as well as exceptional photographic technique.

“Southern white rhinos are, in their normal state, surprisingly unthreatening – calm grazers who move around at a leisurely pace,” say Preeti and Prashant, who entered as a couple.

“One morning at Solio Game Reserve in Kenya we were photographing a group of eight rhinos with a few cattle egrets walking among them, a rare sighting in most other national parks.

“Something suddenly shifted and five of the rhinos broke into a run. We understood in that instant why a group of rhinos is called a crash. Neither of us has ever played rugby, but from the point of view of the egrets this is how we imagine a forward pack must look, heads down and all that weight already committed.”

Mikel Iraeta of Spain won the Open Nature and Landscape category with Double arch on Milford Sound, an image he describes as close to impossible to make.

“Milford Sound is a place where it rains on average 300 days a year,” Iraeta says. “The day before I visited, the access road was closed due to snow avalanche danger. It is very difficult to have an entire clear night with no rain, no clouds, no moon and for all of this to coincide at the end of September when it is possible to capture the double arc of the Milky Way. The final image is the result of combining 107 different photographs.”

Xuecheng Liu of the United States won the Open Built Environment category with ‘Center of the Cosmos’, a stitched panorama of Times Square from above.

“Times Square is one of the most photographed places in the world, so my challenge was to find a perspective that could make such a familiar place feel unfamiliar again,” Liu says. “I stitched together 25 frames to create an ultra-wide aerial panorama, with countless points of light resembling stars surrounding the center of a galaxy.”

Tomás Sánchez Ruiz of Spain claimed the Amateur Photographer of the Year title, winning the Amateur Nature and Landscape category with Double Arch Over Stokksnes in Iceland.

“On the night I took this photograph, the aurora forecast was not particularly promising,” Ruiz says. “When I pulled back the curtain of our hotel room and saw a green glow in the sky, I knew this could be the night we had been waiting for. The black sand was completely covered in freshly fallen, untouched snow. And there I was, finally taking the photograph I had been waiting for, with a smile on my face.”

To see all of the winners and finalists, and for details on next year’s competition, head to the Pano Awards website.