Photographer: Jim Jager (Third World Studio)

James L. “Jim” Jager (sometimes given as Jaeger or Jäger) created Third World Studio (TWS) in Chicago, Illinois in 1976. Although Jager had been photographing African-American models since the 1950s, he was not particularly well known until after the formation of TWS.

By the 1970s, Jager’s photography was shifting towards a more natural aesthetic and away from the studio posed form. His models throughout the 1970s looked less like they were self-created in a gym and more like they had been shaped by a life of hard work. Jager’s work was increasingly pornographic as the decade progressed. Although Jager never ventured into film-making, several of his well-endowed “discoveries” went on to become stars in the emerging hard-core porn industry.

The photographs sold by Third World were primarily taken by Jager, but occasionally included the works of photographers Miles Everitt and Alan Boone. Before the death of Jim Jager in 1981, Third World Studio had become the leading American photo studio producing imagery of African-American male models.

Though I have seen it often stated by Dr. Volker Janssen and others that Jager was murdered by one of his models on 19 April 1981, I have been unable to discover a primary source confirming this.

After Jager’s death, Mavety Media’s Black Inches (Mar 1988-Mar 2009) magazine kept the work of Third World Studio in the public eye.

Sources:

• Jager, James, photographer. Mr. Big: The Models of Third World Studio, Chicago, Vol. 1. Simonstown, South Africa: Janssen Publishers, 2001
• Jager, James, photographer. Mr. Long: The Models of Third World Studio, Chicago, Vol. 2. Simonstown, South Africa: Janssen Publishers, 2007
• Alexander, David, editor; Jager, James, photographer. Mr. Hard. Simonstown, South Africa: Janssen Publishers, 2003.
• Oliveira, Michael C. “Third World (Chicago, Illinois) 1976-1981”, Box 31, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, USC Libraries, University of Southern California.