The winners of the 2021 Epson International Pano awards have been announced with the overall winner of the 2021 Open Competition being Joshua Hermann from the USA with three entries, Eternal Triangle, Morning Burn and Ancient Backwaters.
Explaining how his winning entries came to pass Hermann said, “It is an honour to have my images selected in the Open Category alongside so many wonderfully talented photographers. One of the great things about photography is its ability to inform.
“Growing up in south Louisiana and coming to know the swamp and marshlands from an early age, the unique beauty and interesting ecology of the area has stuck with me throughout my life. I hope to share the beauty of these places through my imagery, allow people to get a closer look into the uniqueness of these areas and ultimately to inform them of the importance of protecting these wetlands.
“When shooting Eternal Triangle, I observed a cypress tree generally has a wide flaring base. Due to its watery habitat, it develops this triangular base and root protrusions called cypress knees to help it stand in the soft, soggy bottom. As I paddled amongst the trees on this foggy morning the triangular trunks stood out in a symmetrical fashion. To me, it looked like innumerable triangles receding into the fog. I named this picture Eternal Triangle as an ode to one of my favorite jazz compositions by the great Sonny Stitt.”
The Epson International Pano Awards showcases the work of panoramic photographers worldwide and is the largest competition for panoramic photography.
This year the competition accumulated 5,378 entries from 1,245 professional and amateur photographers in 97 countries across the world – all of whom were competing for thousands of dollars cash and prizes with main sponsor Epson Australia alone providing prizes that included an Epson SureColor P7070 printer, an Epson SureColor P5070 printer and an Epson EB-1780W ultra-slim projector.
Amateur Award
The overall winner of the 2021 Amateur Competition was Daniel Trippolt from Austria with his Shining Night, Legendary Peaks and Shining Heart entries.
Trippolt said, “I discovered my passion for photography when I was 12 years old when my father gave me my first camera. Every free second of my free time was used to take photos of everything and everyone. From animal photography to sports, architecture and portrait photography, I tried everything and found my greatest passion and hobby in landscape photography.
Here I am very much into hyperreal landscape photography, which distinguishes me from most Austrian landscape photographers. Landscape photography has become a huge part of my life, even if I don’t have as much time to invest as full-time landscape photographers. The Covid crisis in the last two years has limited my landscape photography hobby a lot, which is why I’m all the more happy about my success in this competition.”
The EPSON Digital Art Prize was won by Manuel Enrique González Carmona from Spain who said about his ‘Anatomy Lesson’ entry, “Minerals, water and water currents are the ingredients with which nature creates these ephemeral landscapes. With each rainy period the canvas is transformed. This canvas is actually a raft of toxic waste from a copper mine, located in the province of Huelva, Spain, which was captured by aerial shooting. These ephemeral formations will disappear with the next intense rains. I live only one hour away from this scenery, so I usually make a visit every week. There are always completely new structures and details that allow you to make countless abstractions and figurations. I often have the feeling that an abstract expressionist painter has created a large canvas and that I am capturing fragments of this work of art with my drone.”
The competition’s curator, David Evans said, “We thought 2020 was a challenging year but 2021 took things to a whole new level. That said, despite the pandemic and so many other challenges the entries this year were nothing short of amazing. We are, yet again, overwhelmed with the level of support from entrants and sponsors, especially Epson and we thank you all so very much and also congratulate all this year’s winners and entrants.”
To view all of the winning galleries, visit www.thepanoawards.com
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