It is entirely possible you have never heard of the photographer Sisi Burn — until you look at the small-print credit below many famous published images of musical artists that have appeared over the last 20-odd years in our major newspapers and magazines.

Burn has been a professional freelance photographer since completing studies in Newport in 1994 and brings an exhibition of her work to Wolfson College next week.

Her first commission, while still at college, was for a set of portraits of the principal players in the BBC National Orchestra of Wales; her portfolio is now immense — from Rattle to Marsalis via Vengerov and Birtwhistle. “It was born out of a love of music; originally I wanted to be a composer, hence my endless fascination with photographing composers. But during A-levels, I started taking pictures of friends with musical instruments and my teachers said I should specialise in this area”.

Most of her photographs, not surprisingly, are of artists in action — I wonder if she approaches her subjects with a preconceived idea of the end product or simply takes lots of pictures and sees what develops (!): “If it’s during a rehearsal, it’s a question of getting what I can, working as discreetly as possible. And now with the digital thing, one ends up taking far too many and has to spend ages editing them afterwards. When I worked with film, I was much more disciplined.”

And it’s not only during rehearsal periods that Burn has to be discreet: the picture she took of pianist Katia Labeque (in the exhibition) was taken at the London Jazz Festival in the Queen Elizabeth Hall from only a few feet away and almost from beneath the piano. That of Philip Glass was another matter entirely: “It was taken during a break in rehearsal at the Albert Hall. I’d asked if I could take some pictures of him and he’d said yes. But during the 20-minute break, he was being interviewed by many other people; luckily I’d planned where I was going to photograph him, and lit it, because, as it turned out, I had exactly one minute with him!” This image will also be on show, along with some 40 others.

Sisi Burn accepts that she has to do most of her work in digital, but says it took her some time to adjust from film: for example she says it’s not nearly so satisfactory turning a colour digital picture into a black-and-white one as it was when she used to shoot on b & w film. And she raises an interesting point: “None of us know how long these digital files are going to last. It’s quite scary, really: they could get corrupted so easily — no CD of images is particularly safe. At least with film, you could put the negatives in your files!”

There are, incidentally, three pictures that won’t be on show — because they have not been taken: if the relevant agents are reading this, Sisi Burn wants to photograph violinist Gidon Kremer (“who’s notorious for not letting a photographer near him!”), the pianist Martha Agerich and Claudio Abbado.

The exhibition runs until March 16 under the auspices of Wolfson’s creative arts fellow, Mark Rowan-Hull, whose college role is precisely to encourage such events. “Sisi’s work appeals to me greatly’, he says: “it captures those important moments in time that one can easily miss when seeing and hearing music. Her work is under-rated and under-sung, but she has a great sensitivity, understanding and involvement with her subjects”.

Incidentally, Rowan-Hull has organised two events for early March: a talk by art historian Richard Cork on visual art and music (March 1, 5.15pm) and a week later at the same time a talk about and screening of Collision, with composer Michael Berkeley and visual artist Kevin Laycock. Entry is free and no booking is required.

Sisi Burn’s work is at Wolfson College February 27-March 16.