Our father, Godfrey MacDomnic, who has died aged 84, was a creative photographer who specialised in portraits of classical musicians and conductors. His images appeared on record covers, in books, in newspapers and advertisements, and have been described by the writer Norman Lebrecht as "an invaluable record of 20th-century classical music". Godfrey photographed important figures of the 1960s and 70s including Jacqueline du Pré, Stravinsky, Sir Adrian Boult, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Daniel Barenboim and Klaus Tennstedt.
Son of Rose (nee Levy) and Samuel MacDomnic, Godfrey was born in Willesden, north London. He came from a family of tailors and furriers, but had no interest in going into the family business, having inherited a strong artistic streak from his mother. His sister, Susan, was born when he was seven and they had a happy childhood in London.
Godfrey attended numerous schools during the second world war (among them St Clement Danes grammar) and spent a year at photographic college at 18. He soon started work as a self-employed photographer, eventually setting up a studio in Paddington Street, central London. He built a strong reputation and also wrote numerous instructive articles for the Amateur Photographer magazine. He always had a passion for listening to classical music and this led him to begin photographing musicians and conductors.
Godfrey's photographs were exhibited several times throughout his career, the most noteworthy being an exhibition that ran for six weeks at the Royal Festival Hall in 1985, simply titled Musicians, of black-and-white photographs taken over the previous 25 years. Eight of his photographs are part of the National Portrait Gallery's collection, including two of Du Pré and one of Sir Jonathan Miller (a cousin).
Our father was a quiet, gentle, creative and witty family man. Nearly 60 years of photography created an exceptional record of musicians, his family, and other subjects and scenes.
He married Elizabeth Asherson, a fellow photographer, in 1960. She died in 2005. Our brother, Peter, died of leukaemia in 1978. We survive Godfrey, along with two granddaughters, Laura and Maria.
