Once upon a time, one of my car enthusiast friends told me that he believed that a clean car—he was speaking of Porsches, in particular—ran better and faster than a dirty one. While on the face of it that doesn’t seem likely, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

A funny thing happened when I had my hand surgery a few years ago. Photographers from all around the country who I didn’t even know,contacted me with stories about their own hand surgeries.

In my book Studio Lighting Anywhere I quote Richard Avedon who once said, “I think all art is about control—the encounter between control and the uncontrollable.” That’s what a dedicated studio, no matter what size it may be or where it may be located, can offer a photographer.

I originally wrote a previous version of this post about a year or so ago and, at the time, I though I had the subject of focusing IR images all figured out. It turned out that I didn’t.

In the first and second seasons of Netflix series Stranger Things, the “Upside Down” is an integral part of the plot but I don’t necessarily understand its place in portraiture.