Finalist, Drag Queen Cowboys by Jane Hilton

These portraits were taken just before the pandemic reached the USA in February 2020. Drag Queen Cowboys is a collaboration with the vibrant community of performers based in Las Vegas. Set in Nevada, and inspired by the locations and displacement of characters in John Houston’s film The Misfits (1961), all drag queens chose and painstakingly made their own ‘Western’ outfits; including accessories, wigs and applying their own make-up. After gaining their trust, I steered them away from their nocturnal habitat of bars and clubs. With no artificial lighting or digital technology, I shot these portraits on black-and-white film, using a plate camera, in the natural light of the American West.