Steve Cole

Following my fathers and grandfathers footsteps, I am a 3rd generation photographer. I can remember 45 years ago when I was twelve years old I was sitting on the sofa in our home which was located near Atlanta, Georgia, being a photographer like he was, my father left his 35mm camera on the sofa. Like any kid I wanted to touch and play with it. I can remember like it was yesterday.

My father always kept a 35mm wide angle lens on his camera. I remember looking through it, playing with the focus, then I unscrewed the lens and attached a 50mm standard lens. For me, being a twelve year old kid seeing the difference between a wide angle lens and a normal 50mm lens, I was blown away! My life changed right then. At twelve years old, I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life!

Soon after that I was totally immersed in photography. By fourteen years old I was in the darkroom developing my on negatives and prints. I was that kid in high school carrying a camera around my neck where ever I went. Ten days after graduating high school I went straight into art school, The Portfolio Center of Atlanta, Georgia.

Graduating early, I went straight to work. For the first few years I specialized in commercial advertising, working alongside the local ad agencies, producing annual reports, magazine covers, business brochures, catalogs and national ads in the major magazines. Around 1995, I started to shoot stock photography for Getty Images, specializing in lifestyle, industry, concepts, adventure and healthcare. 

Over the past few years I have evolved into the video world, producing and directing videos shoots for clients to be used as national TV commercials, web commercials as well as stock video for Getty Images and iStock.

Photography assignments have taken me all over the world, producing shoots in South Africa, Tokyo, London, Slovenia, and Italy to name a few. With over 300,000 stock images licensed so far, my work has been published by Time Magazine, the New York Times, Ford, Money Magazine, Blue Cross Blue Shield, American Cancer Society, Oprah Magazine, and Forbes Magazine to name a few.