German music photographer Afra Gethoeffer Gruetz took two wins at the Event Photography Awards 2026 – bagging the best black and white image, plus sharing top spot in one of the categories for music.
The Event Photography Awards (EPA) is a not-for-profit competition, founded to highlight the importance of high quality photography to the international events industry.
Over 2,300 images captured at events around the world were entered in 2026's competition, submitted by photographers in more than 20 countries.
Gethoeffer Gruetz's 'Black Ink' shot was crowned best photo in the inaugural Black & White Award category – sponsored by Digital Camera magazine – while 'Deep Growl', a shot of Yukina from the band Hanabie headbanging during a show, placed joint first in the Music Events – Performers category.
The EPAs comprises 18 core categories, and the Black & White Award was introduced for 2026, alongside the Event Photographer of the Year accolade, bestowed in conjunction with the Best Portfolio award.
View the current and past winners of the Event Photography Awards here.
Gethoeffer Gruetz was unable to attend the ceremony at the Central Hall Westminster in London, UK, so we caught up her afterwards so she could tell us the story behind 'Black Ink'…
Based in Munich in southern Germany, Gethoeffer Gruetz has a PhD in art history and her photography journey started in 2015, shooting photos of live gigs for the online magazine metal1.info.
Since then, she has mostly photographed metal and punk shows, specializing in low-light photography.
So it must be very satisfying to have won a prestigious international award for 'Black Ink', her photo of Evan Seinfeld from the American hardcore band Biohazard.
It was taken at the Backstage Werk, the most important club for live music in Munich, which is a significant venue for the city's subculture.
"The photo was taken with a Nikon Z 6II and the Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8," she says. "The settings were 1/400sec at f/2.8, ISO 1800, which is pretty typical for me at a hardcore show.
Concert photography is all seeing a picture and reacting in a moment, and fortunately Gethoeffer Gruetz was in the right position to place Seinfeld under the halo above him.
"The options for changing my position were pretty limited; it was more like realizing how cool the halo looked from the position I was already in.
"All you can do is adjust your position by bending your knees or taking a little step to the left or the right.
"In concert photography, at least at shows with fast lights and lots of movement by the musicians, I don't plan my shots – I react to what I get.
The photo was shot in landscape orientation, then cropped to portrait to remove distracting elements.
"I actually had the musician from the hips up, including the mic stand and the neck of his bass guitar, but to get rid of all that, cropping it to portrait format was the only option."
The challenges for this type of photography are well-known – crowded photo pits and being able to photograph a limited number of songs (usually the first three, and hardcore songs tend to be quite short) – plus only being able to work with the lighting in the venue.
"For this photo, low light wasn't the problem; it was pretty bright, but mostly backlight which can be challenging as well."
Gethoeffer Gruetz says the decision to convert the photo to black and white came at the editing stage – she never thinks about editing while shooting.
"For me, editing is always a process during which I find out what the best edit will be for each individual photo – I never use presets.
"In this case the tattoos need hard contrast and color would have been distracting, but that was something I discovered at the editing stage."
And the judges on Digital Camera magazine were suitably impressed, awarding Gethoeffer Gruetz the Black and White category award.
"It's definitely one of my favorite pictures of 2025 and one of my all-time black and white favorites," she says.
"I don't actually edit a lot in black and white, only if I think it will give the photo an extra dimension. I guess in this photo it worked out perfectly, and I am really happy the judges thought so as well."
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