The Port Harcourt born Nigerian-Sierra Leonean, Sunmi Smart-Cole, is known for his versatility, wide range interest and varied experience in photography, music, fashion and journalism. Although, mostly self-taught, his strong visual sense made him embark on a photography course in 1976 at Foothill College in Los Altos, California. Sunmi held his first solo exhibition at Stanford University, California, in 1978. He continued to work to support his new interest until his return to Nigeria in 1982.
A pioneer of many firsts, Smart-Cole became the first photo editor of the newly established Guardian Newspaper in 1983. Readers looked forward to viewing his black and white works with witty captions on Sundays, in “Sunday Portfolio”, a column devoted to his photographs. Subsequently, editorship of the weekly social paper, “Lagos Life”gave Smart-Cole the opportunity to design a newspaper which reached a high standard both visually and in terms of content. He was part of the pioneer Judges Board for Wole Soyinka Investigative Reporting Award in 2005.
Sunmi Smart-Cole captured the photograph that gave the international community their first glimpse of Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, Nigeria’s new head of state after the August 1985 coup d’état.
Appointed managing editor of the Guardian Newspaper in 1988, Smart-Cole resigned in 1989 to return to full-time photography. The Sunmi Smart-Cole Gallery of Photography (probably the first in Africa) was opened in Yaba, Lagos, in 1990. His first book, “The Photography of Sunmi Smart-Cole”, with foreword by Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka (in black and white), was published in 1991.
A celebrated photographer, Smart-Cole has many awards to his credit, including the first TINAPA Movie Awards Achievement in Entertainment Award (Golden Camera Award); the Vivante award as a Champion of Nation Building (category Unique Value Innovators); and the Photo-Journalists Association of Nigeria (PJAN)award for Inspirational Support. He has held many exhibitions in five continents – including in Nigerian missions in Addis Ababa, Brasilia and London (to promote the country’s image), as a cultural ambassador.