Over the last two decades drag has entered the mainstream, not least because drag is photogenic. But what makes a good portrait of a drag queen? It is easy to get lost in all the glitter and glamour without grasping the essence and diversity of these artists. A good portrait, as Martin Schoeller’s Drag Queens shows, captures far more than a person’s particular look: it offers insight into the inner world, the emotions, the motivations and the fantasy of the sitter. Drag is much more than theatrical cross-dressing—it is a vivid staging that reveals a version of the self that might otherwise go unnoticed. In Schoeller’s images drag becomes a form of dynamic portrait that expresses all kinds of ideas of who we imagine ourselves to be, and allows us to live and share these stories—if only for one night.