I kind of - you learn it, you master it, and then you make sure that it just disappears. You know, like if I could have invisible lights, I would, and invisible cameras. I'm just really trying to get at my subject and I respect the technical aspect, but it is not anything that I think about at this point.

It's a wonderful way to get at who someone is through their own love of music and going right at their subconsciousness if you will. You don't play girl singers for girl singers. You know, there's certain things. You do play Ellington for Bobby McFerrin.

We all look in the mirror and see us a little blonder or a little thinner or a little younger, whatever that ideal might be and most of the people that I'm photographing are selling something, you know whether they're on the front of an album cover or a magazine or they're a corporate person ready to switch companies or a doctor selling a skincare line... so I want to help them achieve that.

You know a photo session is really a dance and making sure that they're comfortable and for me it's the music, the music, the music. That is everything.

For me there's several components to picture-taking and it starts with my goals as an artist. It's capturing I guess the inner life of my subject and then it is giving them their idealized version of themselves.

I don't photograph anyone if I can't meet with them first because if I don't do that, then they're just going to the dentist and they're filled with fear. They don't know who I am.

Many of the jazz musicians whom are no longer here. You don't realize that it's history when it is happening and then time passes and you look at a picture and you say "Wow, there is history attached to that."