Born in Jihane, Turkey in 1921, from an Armenian family that moved to Zagazig in 1924. In 1940, he was trained as an assistant to Artinian in "Studio Venus". He joined the American University in Cairo, but soon left it to join his brother Angelo in their own photography studio, set at their parent's house. He started making self-portraits at home experimenting with light and superposition. Soon in 1947, the brother's partnership broke and Van Leo bought what used to be "Studio Metro" at 7, Fouad Street. He worked under the name of "Studio Metro" until 1950, when he changed it to studio "Van Leo," a composite name he derived from Levon. The new location, allowed Van Leo to take thousands portraits of artists during that period. Van Leo is very much the photographer-craftsman. He never had assistants and insisted on doing everything himself, dealing with customers, to lighting, enlarging, and retouching/p
