Home and Studio: Los Angeles (sokolsky.com). Represented by the Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles. After moving his studio to Los Angeles in the 1970s, he found that his work — especially his commercial work — took him all over the world, so he eventually let the studio go. His present studio is in his home, and includes a custom-designed south-facing balcony with the ability to filter and block light.

Family Life: Lives with his wife, Button, married for many years. They have a son, Bing, a respected cinematographer whose credits include "NYPD Blue" and "Numbers."...

For more than half a century, photographer Melvin Sokolsky has blazed a trail across the fashion, celebrity and advertising world with his uniquely personal point of view.

Melvin Sokolsky was 18 years old, on his way to look at a studio to share in New York. He was with his girlfriend — now his wife — Button. The door on the seventh floor was opened by "a balding, chubbyish man with a little tummy, and he had a very thick accent. And I was like a gymnast. I looked at him as a guy who doesn't take care of himself. That was my mentality at that time. All sorts of criteria, of judgment, suspicion; I had it all."

The man asked if he could photograph Sokolsky's girlfriend. While he was setting up, Sokolsky wandered around the studio, where there were matted prints...