Monday night was the New York premiere of Season 8 of RuPaul’s Drag Race and I asked my friend, photographer Ruben Natal-San Miguel shoot it for World of Wonder. He’s a talented street photographer with an upcoming New York exhibit, so some of these pics might even be on a gallery wall soon. Here are solid gold pics of all 12 girls; Kim Chi, Thorgy Thor, Chi Chi Devayne, Robbie Turner, Acid Betty, Naomi Smalls, Naysha Lopez, Bob the Drag Queen, Cynthia Lee Fontaine, Derrick Barry, Laila McQueen & Dax ExclamationPoint.

These girls and drag are everywhere now. Robbie Turner told the Huffington Post;

“I think drag is helping a lot of movements happening the same time…. drag queens aren’t scary anymore, they’re in your home. They’re the gal pal that you want to go out with –we’re like the ultimate accessory.“

And some of these girls had some MAJOR accessories too. Bob the Drag Queen had one. A giant, gold space helmet that some guy INSISTED on being shot inside of. Me.

RuPaul’s Drag Race premieres on Monday, March 7 at 10PM, EST on Logo.

“I feel like I’m always going to have critics that say, ‘He only does Britney’ or ‘He’s always blonde,’… when I auditioned I wanted to be known in the way Chad Michaels is for Cher, and I wanted everyone to know that Britney is what I do. I’m so excited for people to see everything else I’m doing. I’ll always keep Britney a part of what I do but I feel like I did so much growing in the show while being around all of these inspiring people.“

“…this is the first time I’m actually saying this to anybody, on the show I realized very quickly that the other girls were very efficient with their time…. I was always running around like this worry wart. Which I didn’t expect! But I really learned a lot about time management and like how I’m terrible at it, bad at asking for help because I’m very independent. Most people that live in New York, you can’t depend on other people to get you anything –you have to go cut in front of somebody, you gotta stab somebody to get that cab (laughs). So I learned that about myself.“

(Photos, Ruben Natal-San Miguel; quotes via Huffington Post)