Back in the late 70s I was doing an assignment for a paperback book company. The images were sexy portraits. Meanwhile, Greg Downer, the art director of Opera News magazine, contacted me to photograph Richard Stilwell and Fredrica Von Stade for the cover. I showed Greg some of the images I had taken for these book covers, and suggested we shoot opera stars in the same fashion. We started with one of the stars, did a beauty shot first, and then we did a shot with the singer laying down on the floor. Well, this put them in a very different state of mind, and allowed us to get some very relaxed, comfortable, and engaged images. Then Greg gave me a second and third assignment, and this began a series of photographs in Opera News by Stan Fellerman.