French on his mother's side and British on his father's, Marc Royce spent his formative years in a Europe whose art and architecture, language and light, seeped into his consciousness. After graduating with a fine-arts degree from Ohio's prestigious Kenyon College, he went to work for the legendary Richard Avedon, soon rising to the top positions of studio manager and first assistant. For five years he helped implement groundbreaking Versace campaigns, collectors'-item Pirelli calendars, and iconic portrait sittings (including the provocative one of Stephanie Seymour), and was valued by Avedon for his eager curiosity, his way with light and natural way with people. After learning from the master not only to see but to transcend what he sees, Royce was ready to become a photographer in his own right. In short order his editorial work - encompassing portraiture, entertainment, reportage, and travel - was being published in such magazines as Vogue, The New Yorker, People, and The New York Times Magazine. As Royce's portraits of President Obama, Stephen Spielberg, Jenna Jamison, January Jones, Heidi Klum, Elizabeth Taylor, Oprah Winfrey, will.i.am, Richard Branson, and Chelsea Handler, among dozens of others, attest, he is an accomplished capturer of the essence of a person, or the effervescence of a "personality," as the case may be. "I wait for what Cartier-Bresson called the 'decisive moment,'" he says. Royce is a photographer equally adept at realizing advertising campaigns. His persuasive images, marked by attention to detail combined with a certain level of inventiveness, have appeared in ads for such clients as Twitter, Instagram, GOT MILK, T-Mobil, Covergirl, and the United States Postal Service. Marc Royce is based in Los Angeles.