Melvin Sokolsky (October 9, 1933 – August 29, 2022) was an American
photographer
A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs.
Duties and types of photographers
As in other ...
and film director.
Early life
Born in New York City in 1933, Sokolsky was raised on the
Lower East Side.
He had no formal training in photography, but started to use his father's box camera at about the age of ten.
Always analytical, he started to realize the role that emulsion played as he compared his own photographs with those his father had kept in albums through the years. "''I could never make my photographs of Butch the dog look like the pearly finish of my father's prints, and it was then that I realized the importance of the emulsion of the day.''"
Career
Around 1954, Sokolsky met
Robert Denning
Robert Denning (March 13, 1927 – August 26, 2005) was an American interior designer whose lush interpretations of French Victorian decor became an emblem of corporate raider tastes in the 1980s.
Early life
Denning was born Robert Dennis ...
, who at the time worked with photographer
Edgar de Evia
Edgar Domingo Evia y Joutard, known professionally as Edgar de Evia (July 30, 1910 – February 10, 2003), was a Mexican-born American interiors photographer.
In a career that spanned the 1940s through the 1990s, his photography appeared in maga ...
, at an East Side gym. "I discovered that Edgar was paid $4000 for a Jell-O ad, and the idea of escaping from my tenement dwelling became an incredible dream and inspiration.
He made editorial fashion photographs for publications such as ''
Harper's Bazaar'' (for which he produced, in 1963, a "Bubble" series of photographs depicting fashion models "floating" in giant clear plastic bubbles suspended in midair above the River Seine in Paris), ''
Vogue
Vogue may refer to:
Business
* ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine
** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine
** ''Vogue China'', ...
''
and ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
''. Three quarters of his print photography has been for advertising, which does not usually carry a byline. Sokolsky said in an interview: "''I resented the attitude that 'This is editorial and this is advertising'. I always felt, why dilute it? Why not always go for the full shot?''"
Toward the end of the 1960s, Sokolsky worked as both commercial director and cameraman. In early 2002, Sokolsky shot the pictures for Celine Dion’s
A New Day Has Come
''A New Day Has Come'' is the seventh English-language and eighteenth studio album by Canadian singer Celine Dion, released by Sony Music Entertainment on 22 March 2002. It was her first new studio album since 1998's Christmas album ''These Are ...
.
Personal life and death
Sokolsky was married to Button Whelan; she died in 2016.
He died on August 29, 2022 at the age of 88 in Beverly Hills, California.
References
External links
*
Melvin Sokolsky's Affinities
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sokolsky, Melvin
1933 births
2022 deaths
Fashion photographers
Photographers from New York City