From the site’s photographer archive: Cliff Baise’s gallery ranges from cities and desert landscapes to portraits and public art. His original first-person account below describes his path from design work into photography and his interest in Burning Man. The time-specific travel and family details belong to that archive interview, not a current profile.
Photography and interview credit: Cliff Baise. The original Google+ link redirects to an unrelated Workspace update, so it has been removed. Portrait and artwork reproduction rights require review.
I’m Cliff Baise, an artist, explorer, husband and father. I love to capture the beauty I find when exploring new places. We recently bought a RV and are having fun traveling the US. I graduated from the Art Institute of Dallas with a degree in Visual Communication in 1992. I worked for a couple of agencies before setting out on my own as a freelance graphic designer in 1999. My wife was able to quit her retail job to help me out, in our in-home studio full-time in 2006. I didn’t begin photography until 2008 as a necessity. A client that I was doing graphic design work for wondered if I could do product shots, and of course I accepted the challenge. After learning the camera functions, I began exploring post processing options and fell in love with some of the techniques I discovered and the entire photography process in general. Now it’s my passion. Since discovering photography, my world has expanded massively to meet other amazing artists and photographers who are now my friends. My favorite subject to photograph is the people and art of Burning Man, a week-long festival in the Northern Nevada desert, which I’ve been a part of every year since 2011. My second favorite, would be shooting amazing landscapes, although I did several senior shoots this year and they were really fun, too. There are so many different techniques and genres when it comes to photography, I’m just having a blast trying it all.
