Forbes London

Capturing London's Underground Drag Scene in Black and White

A back-alley Hackney club, a Vauxhall ballroom, a cramped Soho dressing room — these are the spaces one photographer is documenting in monochrome. The grain-soaked portraits are gaining traction with editors from Sydney to Berlin, built on a single choice: black and white.

The series began during lockdown and now circulates in independent zines, on East London gallery walls and across a tightly curated Instagram following. Fashion editors at Grazia and Harper's Bazaar AU have run the images, drawn to a sensibility owing as much to Mapplethorpe as to red-carpet magazinism.

What separates the project from smartphone-shot nightlife flooding social feeds is patience. The photographer waits for sweat, laughter and the half-second a performer drops their persona.

A bedroom project that grew teeth

The photographer, who uses the working name Halo and prefers anonymity in print, began shooting in 2021 with a battered Pentax K1000 inherited from a grandparent. The camera's mechanical shutter forced a discipline digital shooters rarely adopt: twelve frames per roll, no chimping, no second takes.

Drag performers responded to the analog process as a kind of consent ritual. Halo asks before each frame, shows the back of the camera, and explains what the image is for. The trust this builds shows in the portraits, which carry a directness missing from typical commercial work.

The choice to remain anonymous is itself a deliberate artistic statement. Halo places performers centre-frame, mirroring the drag tradition's own play with identity, authorship and visibility.

Why monochrome works for drag

Colour in drag is loud and competitive. Sequins, wigs, lip colour all fight for the eye. By removing the spectrum, Halo forces the viewer to read expression, posture and texture. A sequinned gown becomes a pattern of light and shadow; a powdered cheekbone reads as a sculpted curve rather than a shade.

The aesthetic connects drag to a longer portrait lineage. The medium's earliest practitioners shot in black and white, and that look carries an immediate signal of seriousness. For a subculture long dismissed by mainstream critics, that seriousness functions as a quiet political act.

Curators are noticing. A recent panel at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art discussed how monochrome photography grants queer subjects a gravitas colour shoots often deny them, an argument Halo's work practically illustrates.

Building trust in hidden venues

London's underground drag scene does not advertise itself openly. Word of mouth, group chats and flyers inside venues like The Glory and Duckie determine who gets in. Halo spent two years attending shows as an audience member before bringing a camera near a stage.

That slow integration echoes the approach of Australian photographers working with remote Aboriginal communities, where reciprocity and time are non-negotiable before a frame is captured.

The result is access to intimate settings: dressing rooms, the stillness of a wig being pinned, performers sharing a mirror. Halo's treatment makes these rarely-photographed moments feel both contemporary and archival.

Faces behind the lashes

The series includes performers from across London's drag ecosystem: pageant queens from South London's ballroom circuit and alternative artists from Bethnal Green. One striking portrait shows a performer in full beat waiting on the Victoria line.

Australian viewers will recognise a kinship with their own scene. Sydney-based photographer Lisa Sorgini has been cited as an influence, alongside high-contrast queer portraiture from Melbourne club nights.

Brisbane-born Courtney Act, a RuPaul's Drag Race alumna and global ambassador for the form, has shared several images, pushing the project to a wider Asia-Pacific audience.

A global queer portraiture conversation

Halo's work sits inside a wider international conversation about how queer subjects are photographed. Different practitioners approach the question with different tools.

Photographer Location Signature approach Notable work
Halo London Monochrome film, anonymous Hackney drag series
Lisa Sorgini Sydney Soft natural light, colour Domestic intimacy
Robert Mapplethorpe New York High-contrast studio 1970s–80s portraits
Pierre et Gilles Paris Hand-painted colour Club kid iconography
Cass Bird New York Candid colour, motion On the Edge series

What these projects share is dignity over decoration. Each photographer refuses to treat queer subjects as curiosities.

Exhibitions and Australian connections

A solo exhibition is scheduled for late next year at a converted East London warehouse. Australian gallerists are reportedly in talks to bring the show to Melbourne's ACMI in 2026.

The Australia Council for the Arts, which has funded residencies for Australian photographers documenting queer life abroad, has noted the project. While Halo is not Australian, the institutional interest reflects policy priorities around diversity in the arts.

Australia's legal context helps explain audience demand. Same-sex marriage was legalised nationwide in late 2017, and drag visibility has climbed steadily since, particularly around Sydney's annual Mardi Gras parade.

Carrying the project forward

For photographers inspired to document their own scenes, Halo offers practical lessons from years of slow work.

The London underground captured in Halo's frames is by definition temporary. Venues close, performers move on, subcultures evolve. By committing to film and to monochrome, the photographer has created a record that will outlast the LED-lit rooms that birthed it.

Tickets for the East London exhibition go on sale soon. Prints from the project are available, with proceeds split between the photographer and a London-based LGBTQ+ youth charity.