Gregory Mark Preston (born June 2, 1960) is an American photographer and author, best known for his portraiture of artists within their creative spaces. Early life Preston was first exposed to comic books at age eight and was immediately drawn to the visuals. At age 13, Preston was reintroduced to comics by a friend and from that point on he was hooked. For college, Preston enrolled at UNLV for his first two years as a Fine Arts major, thinking he wanted to be an Illustrator, but really his desire was to be comic book artist. An instructor's advice that Preston seek out a more serious art school, with commercial sensibilities led him to enroll in Community College for Graphic Design. Preston bought his first camera, an Olympus OM-1, during that third year of studies, to shoot reference photos for his illustrations, and found his passion. After graduating with a degree in Graphic Design, Preston then moved to LA to study photography at Art Center College of Design. In school, Preston began shooting with Nikon and Hasselblad cameras; and his favorite photographer influences were Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Albert Watson, Mark Seliger, and Andrew Eccles. Preston met Sharon Sampsel at Art Center, graduating in 1986, and the couple married the same year. Career Preston would go on to find work as commercial advertising photographer, specializing in Hotel, Resort, Hospitality, Weddings, Portrait, Editorial, Food, and Architectural photography. Preston and his wife opened their Las Vegas based photography studio, Sampsel Preston Photography, on April 1, 1988. Preston's love of the illustration & fantasy art and a suggestion from cartoonist Scott Shaw brought about the idea for Preston's project of portraits of artists within their studios. The 15-year long project brought together 101 cartoonists, comic book artists, and animators into an award-winning book of black and white portraits whose subjects included Frank Miller, Al Hirschfeld, Joe Barbera, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Moebius, Walt and Louise Simonson. The Artist Within: Portraits of Cartoonists, Comic Book Artists, Animators and Others was published by Dark Horse Books in 2007. After the success of his first book, Preston crowdfunded the companion book. Launched in March 2017, the Kickstarter campaign received funding of $30,624. The Artist Within: Behind the Lines: Book 2 was published in November 2017, and features both black and white and color portraits of more than one hundred artists such as Drew Struzan, Jack Kirby, Mark