Mulé was born in Cleveland and grew up in Hudson, Ohio just up the road from Cuyahoga Falls where he has lived and raised his children with his wife since 1995. He discovered his natural ability and passion for photography while taking several high school photography classes and went on to win both regional and national awards at the 1987 Kodak Scholastic Art Awards held at Kent State University.
Along with the awards came a scholarship to attend The Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia (SCAD). Stephen graduated in 1992 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Photography and a minor in Art History. He has been shooting professionally since 1989 when he received his first commercial photography and wedding shoots. Stephen is able to capture images that demonstrate his appreciation of both manmade and natural subjects. He excels at utilizing natural light, tone, texture, color, negative space, repetition, leading lines, depth of field and other interesting compositional elements that intrigue him. His photographic interests can range from traditional landscape photography, to abstract images of nature and or manmade objects. Steve describes his approach to manmade subjects as “abstract industrial” or in other cases "City scapes". “You can see the beauty in everything and anything if you look at something with a new perspective”. Steve’s style tends to encompass a formalist approach where the form of the object or scene is his main focus. He prefers to use a “shoot from the hip” approach when he works, similar to the way a photojournalist may shoot an assignment, working fast with multiple cameras and lenses. When he sees something he wants to capture, Steve will work the subject with multiple lenses, angles and techniques until he feels he has captured the essence of what he was trying to show.