Moustache Jim Studios

I make large format and silver gelatin Photography prints as well as music video and improv. How I came into photography as a medium was originally in the pursuit of trying to find a way to document the show and the band that I produced years ago. I had always enjoyed photography and found that I liked to take pictures from a very young age. My father gave me a camera for Christmas when I was a y

oung man and I ran around photographing various things, but mostly portraiture of some sort. I remember going into Minneapolis when I was a teenager and photographing an event that was called a "Vietnam Veteran Stand Down." It was an event that hosted homeless veterans and gave them camping goods, haircuts and various other donated goods and services. I got some great documentary portraits that day, I also remember grabbing a portrait of Fancy Ray who was nearby. Either way, it would be some years before I fell in love with photography. Like I said, I had a band called “Moustache Jim and the Straight Razors” that featured burlesque performers. I decided I would like to have stereo optic 3D pictures of the show, so I had to figure out how stereo optic photos were made. After making a few stereo optic pictures and having them work well, I decided that I would try to figure out how to make beautiful images, and then I sort of fell down the rabbit hole and got ensnared by what would become the vehicle of my passion. I got a couple cameras from my dad, they were a Polaroid 110a and a, 110b, they were roll film cameras and they had wonderful 127mm lenses that were everything that a good camera needed. They were made by Wollensak and had good glass and I could select the aperture and shutter speed on them, so I took picture after picture on them and took notes. (I actually had them converted by a friend to take pack film that was instant.) I just devoured YouTube tutorials and technical manuals and all sorts of materials that would help me learn.