Clique Vodka sat down with photographer and True Artist Julian Murray this month.

How did you get started in Photography?
I first got started in photography about five years ago while picking it up as a hobby while I was 19. I started out taking basic portraits for the first few months until I got picked up by another photographer in Minneapolis to assist him at an entertainment company. Within six months of starting photography as a hobby it turned into a full time job and career focus.

Who are some people you have had the chance to work with over the years?
In the past five years of doing photography I have had the chance to work with a lot of great indie artists such as Mod Sun, Prof, Cecil Otter, Brother Ali and many more. On a mainstream level I have photographed Jason Derulo, Freddie Gibbs, Xzibit, Cypress Hill and Cheech and Chong.

You are originally from MN, why the move to Vegas? Has there been other moves as well?
My fiance Lace and I decided to take a shot and move to LA in January of 2010. I was doing celebrity work like I had always wanted to do, but realized right away that LA definitely was not for me as far as a place to live. At the same time we had started pursuing turning our Tattoos & Tentacles project into a full coffee table book so we moved to Las Vegas to avoid the winter and finish the book. We ended up enjoying Vegas life and have been out here for a year and a half going on two years.

How did you find out about Clique Vodka?
I found out about Clique through another True Artist Mod Sun. Mod is from Minnesota as well and we finally worked together in late 2011 on some new promo photos for him and he was telling me about it. I think it was originally Pat that saw the photos we did and me and him started talking about a possible sponsorship for myself.

What is the major project you are working on right now?
Currently we are working on pushing our book that we self published in October of 2011. We worked on the book for a few years and shot in numerous cities with around 75 people photographed total for the project. We went back to Minnesota for the summer to print the book locally and then came back out to Vegas and have been touring the book at art shows and tattoo conventions.

What’s the next step for you?
The next step is to sell what we have left of the first run of books. We are going to start looking into publishers to see if there would be any interested in getting it picked up somewhere. Otherwise we do plan on reprinting and to keep touring it at conventions this year and next. I also want to do another book that I have an idea for but has nothing to do with octopus or tattooed people this time around.