One of my biggest inspirations in contemporary photography is Annie Leibovitz, who is among the most influential photographers of our time and a master of group portraits. Every year she creates a three-page group photo with the most popular Hollywood stars for Vanity Fair magazine. Inspired by this, I have created this image for the Maria Baptist Orchestra.

The process of creating the picture is quite sophisticated: we lit and photographed each musician separately. I put the individual portraits together as a whole image in post-production. Through this method, the group portrait takes on a painterly quality with Rembrandt-like lighting.

Lighting Assistant: Henning Wölk

Photo Assistant: Maria Baptist