Every summer at the BBC Proms the world's greatest conductors are captured in the waiting lens of Chris Christodoulou. His official portraits are sent out to the press straight after most concerts. But at the end of the two-month festival he supplies theartsdesk with action shots snaps which the maestri may perhaps not choose to stick on the mantelpiece. For the sixth year running, we publish them here (click on some previous galleries in the sidebar). Feast once again on images of flying hair, glistening foreheads, popping eyeballs, gurning gobs and helicopter arms.

Chris Christodoulou is the official Proms photographer, writes David Nice. From his uniquely privileged position behind a velvet curtain, he captures the white heat of performance. The official shots roll off the press a couple of hours after the concert, but for the past five years our man in the Albert Hall has supplied theartsdesk with unofficial contraband images of conductors in action.

In recent years the BBC Proms have woken up to the idea that an audience for classical music can be captured young. The Doctor Who Prom was the first to harness a BBC brand and turn it into a stealthy orchestral primer. The Horrible Histories has served its turn too. This season the Proms aimed at smaller listeners are multiplying. Last weekend there was the Sports Prom, with a programme of popular theme tunes bulked out by music on the theme of outdoor pursuits. This weekend there brought the CBeebies Prom with the BBC Philharmonic.

"What I’m looking for is that fraction of a second that at least I could remember the concert by." At the start of the 2013 BBC Proms season, photographer Chris Christodoulou let theartsdesk into the secret of snapping conductors at work. Now that the Proms are over for another year, we publish not the official shots, but the ones which are simply too quirky to be released by the BBC press office. These images may not particularly flatter their subjects, but they do capture what it is to be a silent maestro magically conjuring sound from the massed ranks of an orchestra.

There's the First Night and there's the Last Night. Nowadays among the staples of the two-month world-famous festival of music at the Royal Albert Hall, there is also the Doctor Who Prom. Last night, to mark the 50th anniversary of the resurgent TV sci-fi show, a celebration was laid on featuring Murray Gold's music from the last eight years of Doctor Who.

Chris Christodoulou has been photographing conductors at the BBC Proms since 1981. Many attending the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall may well have attempted to spot him. They can give up on that game herewith. As he explains to theartsdesk, the venue with its many curtains and nooks allows him to work discreetly. (If you want to know what he looks like, see below right.) We have been featuring Chris’s pictures in an annual gallery since 2010. This year we have asked him what makes a good picture of a conductor, and how he goes about securing it.

The BBC Proms are steeped in traditions, many admirable, some arcane, the odd one ever so slightly maddening. In the short life of The Arts Desk - we turned three on Sunday, the day after the 2012 Proms season came to a close - another tradition has come into being. Every year we publish a gallery of portraits of conductors at work. These astonishing photographs are all by Chris Christodoulou, who has been capturing the Proms in pictures for 31 years.

The greatest music festival of them is once more upon us. Throughout our extensive coverage of last year's BBC Proms, we featured the remarkable work of photographer Chris Christodoulou. We have asked Chris to select his favourite pictures of conductors at work, and we present them again for your entertainment and enlightenment as the world's greatest conductors again take to the podium for the summer to show exactly what it takes to do what they do.

After two Proms devoted to Doctor Who, this year's children's Prom ceded the floor today to the hugely popular CBBC television series Horrible Histories. The series is based, in case you don't know your Horrible Histories history, on the books initially written by Terry Deary.

Chris Christodoulou has been honing his focus on conductors in past Proms seasons to wonderful effect, but this year has produced a galaxy of master portraits that outdoes even the immortal cartoons of Gerard Hoffnung in entertainment value. We’ve featured many of them throughout our reviews of two months of Proms. Here Chris makes his selection of favourites. Click on a picture to enter the slideshow. All pictures © Chris Christodoulou.