Ariel Kassulke Shoots Music, Drag, Weddings and More

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Visual Arts

Ariel Kassulke is a photographer who captures everything from stylish portraits to live music and drag performances to weddings and more. With over a decade of experience, her work has been referred to as “retro-futuristic editorial.” Her unique style alternates between pops of color and moody monochrome, achieved through color edits in Lightroom while manipulative and cosmetic edits are done in Photoshop.

Interested in photography from a young age, Kassulke would steal her mom’s disposable camera when she was a kid. Everything really took off for her, however, when she would go to local metal shows as she got older. “I had a little digital camera and would take photos of my friends playing, and people started liking what I did,” she recalls. “I also helped lead photography classes in high school alongside my art teacher, Martha.”

Shortly after that, Kassulke got her first DSLR camera around 2010 and she has been booking clients since about 2013. 

Kassulke’s two proudest career moments have been shooting Trixie Mattel and Katya for her first gig at This Is It and having one of her photos featured on a Barns Courtney EP. She has shot a wide range of popular bands and artists; Paramore, Flaming Lips and Fall Out Boy are just a few. Drag queens she has shot include Monet X Change, Denali Foxx, Silky Nutmet Ganache and more.

Music has always been an extremely important part of Kassulke’s life, and she has gone on tours with a number of bands. “To me, documenting music is the ultimate form of expression, which leads into my love of touring,” she said. “It really digs deep for me. The connection that music brings both between the artists and the fans, to even just your peers in the room—everyone gets to share that moment of bliss even for just a moment.”

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Minnesota-based Bomb Da Von, formerly Love Out Loud, were the last band Kassulke toured with. The experience had a profound impact on her; she explains, “Unfortunately we lost their drummer Mitch about two years ago, which has been really tough, but I owe a lot to him and their singer Dillon. I was on the verge of quitting photography when they asked me to go on a last-minute run with them and that really turned things around for me and inspired me to keep going.”

Drag photography is still a relatively new endeavor for Kassulke; she began doing it about two years ago after she got in touch with This Is It. “I emailed them asking if they wanted to work together on stuff for Milwaukee Pride and that’s what kicked everything off,” she said. “Drag combines everything I love, from music and live performance to fashion, to allowing me to embrace my own queerness and feel most at home and confident in myself. Support your local drag artists because they’re some of the most hardworking people out there!”

Kassulke didn’t imagine herself shooting weddings at first but has come to love doing them, saying, “The personal connection and being able to capture the little moments is everything. I’ve had the pleasure of working with some incredible people who I still keep in contact with to this day.”

She has a traveling studio and can work wherever needed; that said, she hopes to have her own space within the year. On what brings her the most joy in her work, Kassulke shares, “I love how confident a shoot can make somebody feel. I’ve had clients be brought to tears because it just makes them feel beautiful and happy with themselves, and that’s kind of the main reason why I do what I do. I also love the creativeness that the editing process brings.”

Ariel Kassulke recently announced for this year’s Milwaukee Pride that she is collaborating with Nice Hair on Sunday, May 28th for a drag workshop with artists from around the city. It will be a donation-based event; all proceeds will be donated to Butterfly Collective MKE, a social outreach platform for the QTPOC community in Milwaukee..

She also hopes to tour again at some point for both music and drag, saying, “Touring is kind of what made me fall back in love with photography.”

To view her work or book a shoot, visit Ariel Kassulke’s website at arielkassulke.com.