Not long after, Steiner's work as a freelance photographer in New York began, working mostly in advertising and for publications like "Ladies' Home Journal". With fellow graduate Anton Bruehl (1900–1982), in 1925, they opened a studio on 47th Street, producing a narrative series of amusing table-top shots of three cut‑out figures dressed in suits for "The New Yorker" magazine; advertisements for Weber and Heilbroner menswear in a running weekly series. Their client was wiped out in the Wall Street Crash.