Abbey Road Studios and Hennessy present the inaugural Music Photography Awards

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Art & Culture

The newly launched awards show will see Hennessy champion scenes and subcultures from around the world with their own award category.

Abbey Road will play host to the first Music Photography Awards this year in collaboration with Hennessy – offering photographers from all walks of life the opportunity to submit and showcase their work on a global stage. Applications are now open now and will close on the 21st of March.

Spearheaded by Hennessy, the awards will feature a number of guest judges who will be involved in nominating the winner including high profile photographic journalist Simon Wheatley who is best known for having captured the emergence of Grime in the UK.

This is the first time that a competition has been launched to focus specifically on the art of music photography, other judges will include industry experts such as Rankin, Jill Furmanovsky and Dana Scruggs.

Guest judge Simon Wheatley, who will be picking the winner for the MPAs Championing Scenes Award, has spoken excitedly at the opportunity the award show offers not only to photographers but to musical subcultures.

“I’m interested not just in the music itself, but where it’s coming from. Subcultures emerge from cracks in society and that’s what fascinates me most. Grime reflected a youthful discontent, and when I began to hear it, I wanted to capture the place of angst and alienation from which it sprung. I believe that a documentarian of musical subculture should reveal the social texture of the sound, and, as a guest judge for the inaugural Abbey Road Studios Music Photography Awards, I’m excited to celebrate the insights of other photographers into the movements they chronicle as part of the Championing Scenes category. Grime was a great adventure – for me that’s what photography has always been about.”

Applications for music photographers are open now with the winners being announced at an official ceremony on Saturday the 14th of May later this spring.