Happy International Women’s Day 🤍 Here is a photo i took of @diespitz last year and am tentatively calling “The Front Row” because “The Male Gaze” felt slightly too on the nose.
When I first looked through my images from this night and saw what I’d captured, I immediately stopped at this one and thought of the phenomena which Laura Snapes calls the “DCG” in her article from The Guardian last year. The DCG will be familiar to anyone who has been in the front row of a gig that has a woman-fronted act. An abbreviation of “Digital Camera Guys,” the DCG is an older man in the crowd with a camera who zooms in and out on the women musicians intently and immovably throughout the show. I have also heard reports of these guys upskirting the musicians. I would not discourage men from being supportive and interested in women artists, and am also not accusing any of the men in this image of partaking in this, but there is something deeply unsettling about the male faces looming out of the dark that brought the phenomenon to mind. Why is the crowd for this all-women rock group so full of older men? What happens when we turn the camera into the shadows rather than the stage? Women’s bodies are constantly surveilled, and with the set up of a live gig, where the room is split between the watcher and the watched, it is vital that our women artists feel safe, and that the line between respectful enjoyment and voyeurism is never ever crossed.
All my love to the incredible women i have met working in music, you all amaze me 🤍 H x
All quotes are from Laura Snapes’ brilliant 2025 article “The worst gig-goers aren’t phone-wielding teens. It’s creepy blokes zooming in on female musicians”
Happy New Year everyone! i thought i should post my award from @karmamag for Best Fan Photo on the grid (alongside my celebratory 2am pasta selfie <3)
this award means a lot because this series of images serves as a little diary entry for me to say yes i was there when everyone was talking about the Oasis reunion, it rippled out to me too! i was on the platform of my tube station, just down the road from my house and it still reached me! i love seeing the ways that music culture stretches out and affects people in different ways, and i used to always love watching excited Wembley crowds making their way to the stadium and home again. it was so fun being able to document music culture in this way, there is no music without fans 🫶
it’s also a huuuuge honour to have had this voted on to win by so many incredible music photographers that i’ve admired for so long! thank you to the team at @karmamag and all of the judges :)
what an amazing way to end the year, here’s to even more music in 2026 🫶
thank you so much to everyone who came to the @adidasuk x @guapmag Originals Creator Network exhibition at Somerset House 💓
focusing on the theme “Year of Sport” given to all the creatives on the OCN program, my group created an exhibition of photos and video entitled “Common Ground,” hoping to showcase underrepresented sporting communities around London and looking at how sport brings people together.
these communities were:
@pecseducation shot by @lucien.phoenix@trinistud shot by @notsergioh@brkedoff shot by @samvemba23
and @ebonyhorseclubbrixton shot by me 💞
photos of exhibition:
1st image: @fade_outxx
all other images: @kreativekelis
going through the archives and digging out these pics of @sexmasks at The Great Escape last year in anticipation of it coming round again! ✨
shot for @dazed
some pics of @modernw0man performing at @thelexingtonlondon a few nights ago including one of my favourite new photos of a screaming rocket of hair ❤️ this was so fun !!
Meet @hjmurrell , winner of the 2025 Karma! Best Fan Photo Award 🍀 — sponsored by @useformat . Karma! is a magazine championing female and non-binary creatives, and the Best Fan Photo Award recognises the photographers capturing music culture from the outside in.
Founders @byuchechi and @mrrngllghr sit down with @hjmurrellto talk about what made her image stand out — a shot from the crowd at an Oasis show that captures the atmosphere most photographers miss — and take a look at the Format portfolio she's built around her practice. Check out Hannah's full portfolio. 🔗Link in bio!
Cover image taken by @hjmurrell
