I was lucky to get so many of them to sit for me at all. Unfortunately, the ubiquitous art of photography has treated conductors rather tritely. There seems to have been a tacit doctrine stipulating that conductors shall be photographed wielding a stick in front of an orchestra, or else posing momentously in white tie and tails. These portraits became an opportunity for me to torpedo some stereotypes. For instance, I eschewed the wearing of tuxedos, to avoid perpetuating the sartorial conformity of too many unimaginative album covers.
Enough people think of classical musicians as stuffed shirts anyway.
Portraiture is the embodiment of a sensitive and stylized discipline in photography. It is the still-life of a human being. It is intentionally contrived, never candid. It is also a deliberate act of collaboration between the sitter and the photographer. If a portrait is to be successful, in my opinion, a photographer must intrigue the viewer.