From Jade Thirlwall to Trixie Mattel: Revisit photographer Magnus Hastings’ epic career

Magnus Hastings is a British photographer known for his drag portraiture and long-running documentation of queer culture. His work spans editorial, books, and exhibitions, including Why Drag?, Rainbow Revolution, and the 2024 solo exhibition QUEEN at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. He lives in Palm Springs, California with his dog Juno. Here, he digs out some of his favourite photos from his archive – featuring everyone from Jade Thirlwall to Trixie Mattel to Courtney Act. To read the feature in full, check out Attitude Uncut: The Photography Issue, out now on Apple News+ and the Attitude app.

Courtney Act

This image of Courtney Act shaving was shot specifically for the cover of my first book, Why Drag?. Courtney had been my muse since I first photographed her in Australia, and we moved to Los Angeles within a month of each other. 

We had an incredibly fertile creative relationship, constantly trying things out and doing shoots together simply for the sake of it. I also filmed her audition video for Drag Race, and she became a central figure in my drag work.

We’d photographed a similar idea around five years earlier and decided to revisit it and refine it for the book. I’d been holding off shooting the cover until everything else was ready, and when Courtney came in, it all clicked.

As she’s said herself, everything went right that day – her hair, her makeup, the timing. It’s now one of the most recognisable, and probably the most iconic, images I’ve ever taken.

Trixie Mattel

This image was shot for Los Angeles Magazine in 2023. The original brief leaned heavily towards pink, flowers, and the usual tropes, and I was keen to do something that wasn’t that. Someone mentioned floaties, and I immediately panic-ordered a load of inflatable rings on Amazon the day before the shoot, hoping they’d actually turn up in time. They did. ”

Jade Thirlwall

Jade Thirlwall Jade hit me up and asked to do a shoot because she was a fan of Why Drag? and drag in general. I’d already worked on a Little Mix video while they were out in LA, and later she wanted to do something more playful and drag-adjacent. When she was back in Los Angeles, we made it happen.

Dulce de Leche

I had heard about Dulce doing this amazing performance piece as Tippi Hedren, with cardboard birds rising up from the floor – a very theatrical, only-in-San-Francisco kind of drag. I invited her to shoot with me, but when we shot in LA, the cardboard birds just didn’t work on camera.

I struggled with them for over an hour trying to make them behave, and at the last minute I told her to play it as if the birds were in the air, to just pretend they were around her. I added the crows later, and it worked.

Robert Davidoff

Gay historian and writer Robert Davidoff lived in my building in West Hollywood, and I’d known him for some time. I featured him in my book Rainbow Revolution, and he’s also part of a new project I’m working on focused on telling the stories of older queer people.

This image shows him in his own space, sitting in his apartment, surrounded by his things. It was effectively a test for that new project, and it immediately confirmed that the approach worked. I still love this photograph – it feels honest, calm, and rooted in who he is.

Vanity Faire

I shot this image in Sydney in around 2002. I’d always been fascinated by drag, and it had always been part of my world, but when I arrived in Sydney it felt like it was on another level entirely.

The shows were hugely rehearsed productions, properly staged and thought through, and I completely fell in love with it all over again. Vanity Faire was the queen bee of the scene at the time. I saw her perform a mix of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ in a club and knew immediately that I had to photograph her. 

We did this shoot while I was there, and it remains one of my favourite images I’ve ever taken. Years later, the image unexpectedly sustained me through COVID. Kate Beckinsale owns a copy and posted videos of herself jumping up and down in front of it on a trampoline during lockdown, which led to enough print sales to feed me through the pandemic.”

For more information about Magnus Hastings, visit magnushastings.com and @magnushastings.

Subscribe to Attitude magazine in print, download the Attitude app, and follow Attitude on Apple News+. Plus, find Attitude on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X and YouTube.