As co-host of The Camera Life podcast, one of my roles is locating, engaging, and inviting guests onto our weekly Thursday morning (Australian time) show. Now and then, Justin (Host and Lucky Straps founder) sends me a list of fabulous photographers he would love to see on the show. From time to time, that list includes some true masters and A-listers of the photographic world. Between you and me, I think he likes to set me these challenges to see if I can make it happen. While we are a humble and growing podcast channel, I’ve been amazed by the generosity and support of photographers operating at every level of the craft. I reached out to Jeff Cable, not knowing if he would respond or if The Camera Life podcast was to his taste. After all, Jeff has been interviewed by countless big-league US news outlets and has talked at numerous functions. As it turns out, The Camera Life podcast is definitely to his taste as he wasted no time responding to my call and agreeing to be our guest.
As is often the case, Jeff’s first career was not photography; he discovered it later in life. While Jeff always loved to take photos and began booking birthdays and bar mitzvahs in the Bay Area, it would be some time before he realised that the call to photograph professionally was something he could no longer ignore. As a marketing executive, Jeff spent 25 years working at companies including Symantec, Magellan, Micron, and Lexar ( the people who make memory cards). His corporate travels opened his eyes and creative mind to the endless photographic opportunities. As the demands of his burgeoning photography business grew, so did Jeff’s appetite to photograph local and professional sports. Jeff began documenting local games as a keen ice hockey player and soon discovered he had a knack for capturing professional sports.
Every four years, pro and enthusiast sports photographers flock to each Games in pursuit of winning images celebrating individual success, team pride, and national participation. Jeff Cable has travelled to and photographed the past eight Olympic Games, including Beijing, Vancouver, London, Sochi, Rio de Janeiro, PyeongChang, Tokyo, and Paris. In the earlier days, Jeff would take leave from his corporate job to travel to each host city and document Team USA - arguably one of the modern Olympics's strongest and most impactful teams. Jeff has captured some of the most amazing and memorable individual and team-based performances as part of the official Team USA entourage. But Team USA does NOT have Raygun (infamous Australian break dancer); in that respect, Australia wins the day!
The Summer Olympic Games are the pinnacle of sporting events, and the speed at which news, results, and images spread around the globe increases with each modern Games. During our chat on The Camera Life Podcast, Jeff spoke of the speed at which images are captured, selected, edited, and sent to the USA Olympic team back home. At the earlier games he attended, images would be delivered within a couple of weeks. However, at the recent Paris Olympics, Jeff was expected to document select sporting events, capture thousands of images, select the best, edit, and have them back to home base within 14 minutes! Being the professional photographer that he is, he delivered on those conditions and produced some of the most memorable images from recent Games. What’s also impressive is that, as a Canon Ambassador, Jeff often tested pre-production mirrorless cameras such as the Canon R1 and R5 Mark II at the Olympics. However, as a true professional, Jeff delivered the goods to provide the home team and the world with some of the most awe-inspiring sporting moments ever. To his credit, Jeff was awarded a World Sports Photography Award in 2025 for one of the best images of the year.
While Jeff is best known for his inspiring images from the Olympics, he is also a highly sought-after corporate and event photographer back home in the Bay Area of San Francisco. When not travelling to Paris or Tokyo, Jeff is a popular birthday, event, and Bar Mitzvah (coming of age ritual in Judaism) photographer for local businesses and families. Jeff’s weekends are often booked solid for months ahead as families employ him to work his creative magic on significant life events. While Jeff loves the families he works with and dedicates himself to the four-year Olympic Games, he is also an accomplished photography tour lead and operator. One of Jeff’s many passions is education and supporting other photographers to master their creative craft. Jeff hosts and runs photography tours to some of the most amazing natural wonders of the world. Destinations include Africa, Australia, Asia, Cuba, Europe, India, Central and South America, and, of course, throughout the US. But if you can’t attend Jeff’s next workshop in Cuba, fear not. Jeff’s YouTube channel and website are home to countless videos, blogs, and tutorials on every aspect of his craft in a bid to support others to elevate their creative output.
Jeff Cable is an energetic, charismatic, and generous professional image maker who loves education and sharing the creative process and journey with anyone and everyone. He proved that by joining us for well over two hours for a live chat, including responding to our community's questions and comments. Jeff freely shared his journey, vision, and wisdom with our community despite our humble platform. His story is one of inspiration and the ability to shift mid-career and mid-life from a safe corporate gig into the creative unknown. But, to his absolute credit, his bravery, passion, and success are a model for others to confidently embrace their skills and love of photography and make something of it. It’s fair to say that our conversation on The Camera Life Podcast was one of the highlights that Justin, Jim, and I won’t soon forget.
If you’re unfamiliar with The Camera Life Podcast, be sure to take a look at our YouTube channel for the latest episodes and, of course, our back catalogue of weekly shows. Our shows are also available on popular audio podcast platforms. If you like what you see, please give us a thumbs up, subscribe to The Camera Life, and click on the bell icon to receive notifications of upcoming shows. We host two shows weekly, the first being every Thursday at 9am AEDT (Australia), where we interview amazing guests. The second show, The Random Photography Show, airs every Monday at 7:30 pm AEDT. The Random Photography show is a little random, a little loose, and a lot of fun! Be sure to check them out.
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