Winning Images - EPSON Pano Awards 2011

Brian wins a Silver and a Bronze award for two images submitted to the EPSON's 2011 annual panoramic image competition.

 

Epson, the global printer company sponsors every year an annual panoramic image award. This competition is a world-wide one and is open to any photographer who wishes to enter. An entry fee is involved and winning images are published by Epson and receive significant PR. This year, the first year I've entered, I submitted two images; one of Edinburgh in Winter and one of Cairngorm in autumn.

 

The Cairngorm image scored 80 - 89 giving it a Silver Award and the Edinburgh image scored 70 - 79 giving it Bronze. I have to say I was mighty pleased that both scored so highly and I was delighted at the score achieved by the Cairngorm shot.

 

Panoramic images are easier to shoot than ever, especially using Photoshop CS4 to stitch it all together. Having said that, there is skill involved in composition, lighting, subject matter and location, in addition to choice of lens, camera and focal length, so maybe not that simple after all. Gold standard images have to be above and beyond normal panoramas. A static pano of a landscape isn't difficult, but merging moving images into an otherwise static shot in such a way as to defy belief that its actually a merged series of shots is where the real skill lies. Hardened pano shooters will search for subjects for months and stake out locations for weather and light with a view to getting a single pano out of maybe 16 or more single images. A task not for the casual snapper. 

 

I like the occasional solitary sojourn into the wilderness but I wouldn't camp out there for days. Maybe that's why Silver is enough for me. The winning shots, plus my other successful competition images can be found at this link...

 

Competition Images

 

Brian

2nd June 2011