Spain Takes Top Two Spots at 2026 Epson International Pano Awards

There’s a reason the Epson International Pano Awards contest consistently produces some of the most jaw-dropping images you’ll see all year. And the 2026 winners remind you exactly what this demanding format looks like when someone really knows what they’re doing.

This year’s Open Photographer of the Year is Daniel Viñé Garcia of Spain, whose winning image The Sleeping Giant makes you stop scrolling and just sit with it for a moment. Daniel captured it from air at Parinacota Volcano in Chile – a peak topping 6,300 meters, paired with its neighbor Pomerape at over 6,200. The final image is a full 360-degree aerial panorama from 33 individual exposures stitched together.

“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,” Daniel said. “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.” That last editorial decision is what separates a good image from a great one: knowing what to leave out when you have the whole world to work with.

Daniel also placed in the Open Nature and Landscape category with Cathedral of Starlight, shot at around 3,100 meters in the Argentine Puna, and My Perfect Night, made on a salt flat in Catamarca above 3,300 meters. And that’s not all – he also collected the RAW Planet Award for good measure. Quite a day for Daniel!

The Amateur Photographer of the Year title went to fellow Spaniard Tomás Sánchez Ruiz. His winning image Double Arch Over Stokksnes was made in Iceland under an aurora that wasn’t even supposed to show up.

“On the night I took this photograph, the aurora forecast was not particularly promising,” Tomás said.

“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.”

Aerial Category Now in the Contest

The 17th edition drew 4,084 entries from photographers in 93 countries, a staggering 19 percent increase over 2025. The biggest story beyond the winners themselves is the debut of a dedicated Aerial category. It’s something entrants had been asking for throughout the competition’s entire 17-year history, and the response was immediate. 680 aerial entries landed in the first year alone! Founder and curator David Evans says that the aerial perspective “opens up so much of the world above tripod level and the panoramic format lends itself beautifully to this way of seeing.

The Epson International Pano Awards has been the world’s largest panoramic photography competition since its founding in 2009, and if this year’s gallery is any indication, the field keeps getting stronger. The competition runs across Open and Amateur divisions, spanning Nature and Landscape, Built Environment, Aerial, and VR/360 categories, among others.

Enjoy the category winners below, and make sure to browse the full gallery of winners and runners-up on the contest website. And if any of this makes you want to dust off your gear and hone your stitching workflow, entries for the 2027 edition are now open!

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