The finalists for the Abbey Road Music Photography Awards have been announced, with some familiar faces from the worlds of rock and alternative featuring heavily.
The competition is made up of these open categories: Portrait, Festivals, Emerging Photographer of the Year, Behind The Scenes, Underground Scenes, Live Music, Music Moment of the Year.
Then there is a guest catagory in the form of 50 Years Of Punk, as well as Music Moment Of The Year, which is open for public vote right here.
Head Judge Rankin had this to say about the work submitted: “2026 feels like the strongest year yet for the Abbey Road Music Photography Awards. The quality of the work entered was genuinely exceptional – not just technically brilliant, but full of energy, emotion and a real point of view. Judging was incredibly tough. Getting down to just five finalists in each category meant leaving out so many images that deserved to be recognised, which says everything about the standard this year. Music photography is in a really exciting place right now, and these awards are a brilliant snapshot of that.”
Whilst Abbey Road’s Managing Director Sally Davies adds: “It’s been wonderful to see how warmly the music photography community has embraced the MPAs, and to watch that community grow year after year. The extraordinary response reminds us just how much brilliant talent there is behind the lens, and how important it is to create opportunities for that work to be seen and celebrated. From the awards themselves, to our first Music Photography Festival in New York, we’re incredibly proud to be bringing people together around this unique art form and to see the MPAs becoming a genuinely global celebration of music photography.”
You can find out more about the awards here, but here are some of the photos up for these prestigious awards.
In the festivals category, Download Festival is represented via a Humans Of Download shot by Danny North, alongside a photo of Palaye Royale taken at Sziget Festival by Viktória Erdős.
The Behind The Scenes Awards features a shot by Gabrielle Ravet of My Chemical Romance fans getting ready whilst sat in the queue for their show.
The Live Music category has a shot by Tom Pallant of YUNGBLUD doing his thing.
And the Music Moment Of The Year has two shots of Oasis, from the stage and the crowd. The first is by Harriet T K Bols and the second by Joshua Halling.
Winners will be announced when the awards take place on September 24.
