On Monday the 20th of January 2020 I woke up after a long night of traveling home, from London after photographing a band I love, to an email I thought I’d honestly never get.

I was nominated as one of the Heavy Music Awards Young Photographer Of The Year Awards. This has been one of my goals for the past 3 years as I’ve entered each year since I started university but never got through until now.

I’m alongside 5 other fantastic photographers, some of which I’ve looked up for a while and others who are new discoveries for me. I always draw inspiration from fellow photographers so the competition has given me more connections within my work.

I have just under 2 weeks to pull in as many votes as possible, and the prize if I win is a studio session mentored by the legendary Paul Harries, who is the Kerrang! photographer and one of my biggest inspirations to this day.

Knowing that Paul actually looked at my photograph and thought it was good enough to make it to the final 6 photographs is an honour within itself. The photo that was chosen is CJ (Dreamstate) performing at Burn It Down Festival in Torquay last year. It was my highlight of the year as during the festival I suffered an injury to my wrist during a heavy band, so when I came to the front to photograph Dreamstate they actually pulled me to the stage to shoot their set as they say the injury and didn’t want me in the crowd, so their kindness made this shot possible and I’m forever grateful to be able to work with such amazing bands like Dreamstate.

I’m truly blown away with the response I’ve had via social media since the nomination was announced, feeling the love for sure!

If you’d like to take a moment out of your day to vote for me (no sign up required) you can do so below.

Link To Vote For Me

Thank you for your support throughout this experience, good luck to everyone who’s been nominated and I can’t wait for the event in London in May this year.

Here’s to 2020