Every year, there are plenty of "best of" lists to sift through across many topical genres, but the year in photographs always catches my attention.

Both professional and amateur photographers were invited to enter their best landscape shots for the Epson International Pano Awards 2018 in a bid to win more than $50,000.

Click this link to see some totally "wow" shots, like you might imagine with a list of this nature. And speaking of nature, lightning strikes and a subsequent rainbow in the Grand Canyon impressed the panel of judges, as did a diver nearly coming into contact with a vertical diving humpback whale and movie-like fog drifting ominously over a swamp in the southeast United States.

This is the shot that won in the enhanced category:

Courtesy of Colin Sillerud
Courtesy of Colin Sillerud
loading...

This is the actual overall winner of the contest:

Courtesy of Veselin Atanasov
Courtesy of Veselin Atanasov
loading...

Veselin Atanasov from Bulgaria, with his shot of the sun rising over a tree-lined hill in Tuscany.

Then there's the vertical panorama of the Milky Way above Utah, New Zealand's newest and most active volcano at dawn and it's quite indescribable the "wave of fog" shot from Taiwan. And so much more. Enjoy.

More From 97.1 KXRX