José Azel

José Azel, Contact Press Images

The Summer Olympic Games: Runners in the men's 1500m event stride past the Los Angeles Coliseum on 11 August 1984.

José Azel is an American photographer and visual media entrepreneur whose work has appeared in National Geographic, Smithsonian, Life, Time, Sports Illustrated, and GEO. After earning a BA from Cornell University and a Master’s in Journalism from the University of Missouri, he worked for the Miami Herald before freelancing internationally from 1981 to 1997.

Azel co-founded Aurora Photos in 1993, a stock photography agency representing hundreds of photographers worldwide, and later co-founded Novus Select, a production company for commissioned visual work across corporate and editorial media. He has lectured widely on photojournalism, digital media, and storytelling, including at the National Press Photographers Association, MIT Media Lab, Tufts University, and the National Geographic Society.

Over his career, Azel has overseen major multimedia projects, consulted for Apple, Time Inc., and Scholastic, and helped shape the intersection of photography and digital technology.