Kacey Musgraves and Tom’s One-Hour Photo: See the private photos that started it all

When country star Kacey Musgraves and her sister needed a bunch of disposable cameras full of tour photography developed while in Los Angeles, they stumbled upon Tom’s One-Hour Photo, an old-school photo studio and lab in Koreatown.

Musgraves, who was in town earlier this week for two sold-out shows at the Greek Theatre, ended up putting a national spotlight on a local business that needed the attention. She and her team created an Instagram account for the struggling store, which, as of Friday afternoon, had already amassed more than 44,000 followers — and counting.

In addition to shooting a viral glamour session with Musgraves, the store’s owner developed several disposable cameras that Musgraves’ sister, a professional photographer named Kelly Christine Sutton, had used to document the second leg of the Grammy-winning Musgraves’ “Oh, What a World” tour.

Sutton occasionally photographs Musgraves’ tours, and the sisters are fond of disposable cameras.

“We both love fun instant cameras and disposables when we know there will be a lot of photo-worthy moments happening,” Sutton told The Times Friday.

Sutton’s images, which she’s exclusively sharing with The Times, capture Musgraves and her crew on- and offstage in California.

In some of the photos, Musgraves is shown getting touched up by friend and hairstylist Giovanni Delgado and makeup artist Moani Lee, who later accompanied the sisters to Tom’s One-Hour Photo. In others, Musgraves and band member Nathaniel Smith hold plastic shot glasses on tour in San Diego in a preshow tradition of taking a shot before show time.

Another photo shows Musgraves and Delgado reading vintage Playboys at a flea market in Paso Robles, one of the stops on her tour.

The photos developed at Tom’s One-Hour Photo reveal intimate glimpses of Musgraves’ life on the road. Sutton said that after Musgraves’ band members’ shoes were lost before a performance, she raced out to a store to buy them all matching loafers and immortalized the moment with a picture. The Madonna Inn made Musgraves a hot-pink, belated birthday cake, which also made it into Sutton’s photos.

Exclusive to The Times, check out more of the private photos in the gallery at the top of this story.