THE moment a bone-shaking heavy metal scream echoed through a Manchester arena has been captured by a young Chard photographer and is now up for a top national award.

Murray Deaves’ career as a photographer specialising in rock concerts is still young, but this is already the second time he has been in the finals of the Heavy Music Awards’ Young Photographer of the Year.

He said: “I started doing photography for my art project based around music back in the summer of 2017.

“I took my camera to gigs I was attending to collect images for my coursework.

“I decided to start sharing the images on Instagram and I started building up my follower base.”

A few of Murray’s friends were in bands and, impressed by his early work, invited him to their concerts to capture snaps.

“That helped expand my audience as I got to shoot more and more bands at those gigs,” Murray said.

“Soon I started working with small magazines, shooting shows and writing reviews for them.

“This is the second time I’ve been in the finals of HMA’s Young Photographer of the Year.

“Last year I made the final 30 and that helped boost my followers even more.

“Since last year’s finals, I’ve been seeing a lot more work and also been able to shoot bigger, more mainstream bands.”

After making the final 30 in 2018, Murray has made a shortlist of seven this year.

His picture was taken at Architects’ gig at the Victoria Warehouse in Manchester.

Murray added: “It was a very emotional show.

“The band had recently released their first album which had been written without their founding guitarist, Tom Searle, who had died of cancer a couple of years before.

“I think the picture I submitted just showed how much emotion and energy the whole band and crowd gave off at the show.

“To be honest, it would mean a lot to win the award. I would never of thought that my photography would have progressed to this stage in the short amount of time I have been doing it.

“The fact that people like the content just makes me want to continue and hopefully make a career out of it.”