Well the Epson International Pano Awards for 2013 have come and gone.  This was the second year in which I have entered this competition. 

I think back to a few years ago when I started entering these types of competitions and my main goal was just to see how I compared to fellow photographers whose work I admire.  In my first ever competition (International Loupe Awards 2011) I was awarded 4 silver awards out of 12 entries.  Two of them made the top 50 amateur landscape section!  I think that was a pretty good effort. 

I have always entered the amateur section as that is what I am...an amateur photographer....but this year I didn't enter all my images in the 'amateur' section.  Early on when entries were opened I ploughed through my digital panoramic images and chose two of my best from the last year and entered them.  A few weeks later (after purchasing my Fuji G617) I noticed that they had a prize for best film image in the 'professional' section.  I thought 'why not enter a few film shots in the pro section' considering I had recently purchased a panoramic film camera.  So I entered what I felt were my best two film photos.  As I had only shot 12 film images and it was only 3 different compositions, it was pretty easy to choose two photos.  I chose my 3rd ever and 6th ever film shots. 

Roll on a few weeks and Epson International Pano Awards announced that they were offering a prize for the best film image in the amateur section.  I looked at the prize and it was a Fotoman 617 camera.  I thought to myself that this would be a great prize so I contacted the competition organisers (via Facebook) who told me that I couldn't change my entry as I had already finalised payment to enter the competition.....so I decided to enter the same two film images into the amateur section.  I thought it would be interesting to see how the scoring went in the pro Vs amateur sections considering they were the same images.

In 2012 I managed to receive 7 bronze awards from images entered.  This year I was hoping to come away with at least one silver award and possibly a top 50 place.  Roll on a few weeks and the results were back.  I achieved 5 Bronze awards.  It wasn't quite the silver I was after, but I thought that considering my two film shots (which were my 3rd and 6th ever film shots) were in the pro section received bronze then that wasn't too bad.  Interestingly the images which were entered in both pro and amateur sections scored lower in the amateur section.

The images and results are below:

Amateur Nature - Score: 74 - Bronze Award

Amateur Nature - Score: 73 - Bronze Award

Open Nature (film) - Score: 73 - Bronze Award; Amateur Nature (film) - Score: 69 - Nil award

Open The Built Environment (film) - Score: 78 - Bronze Award; Amateur The Built Environment (film) - Score: 75 - Bronze award

Thanks for looking and let me know what you think of the images!  Also, let me know how you went with your images!  I'm looking forward to the release of the top 50 in each category to get some inspiration!