Power is rarely handed over—it’s constructed, performed, and claimed. This series features drag queens and kings from Southern California, photographed in formal portraits against neutral backdrops. Created with the local community during a residency at Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, the work explores how gender, beauty, and authority are self-fashioned and publicly declared. Each subject arrives fully formed and styled with gestures that blur the line between artifice and authenticity. These portraits are not about impersonation, but embodiment; each figure enacts a version of royalty that disrupts inherited hierarchies and reclaims visibility. The title Royalty speaks to this self-coronation—a refusal to wait for permission to be seen, adorned, and revered. Through poise, costume, and gaze, the series reimagines who holds power, and what that power looks like when it emerges from performance rather than pedigree.