Terry L. Schmidbauer is a visual artist and photographer whose work explores the tension between the natural landscape and human encroachment. Based in Goodyear, Arizona, Schmidbauer creates contemplative projects that focus on disappearing vistas, suburban edges, and the subtle play of light and atmosphere across familiar places. His ongoing series Finding Estrella reflects this close-to-home, film-based practice, capturing both the fragility of place and the quiet persistence of beauty.

Schmidbauer studied at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, graduating in 1986. His career has spanned commercial illustration, art direction, and more than three decades as a 3D artist in the software entertainment industry, with credits on major titles and visual development projects. Alongside this digital career, his photography has remained a central and evolving pursuit, bridging traditional analog techniques with a modern sensitivity to space, shadow, and transition.

His publications include Intervals: The Marsh Sessions (2013), a photographic monograph with a foreword by Jeffery Saddoris, Just Another Day (2011), and an image inclusion in LensWork (Light Glorious Light). Schmidbauer’s work has been recognized with awards from the UK Kennel Club, the World Photography Organization, and Santa Fe Workshops. He has exhibited nationally in venues such as East Side Fine Arts in Bellevue, Wa, the Darkroom Gallery in Vermont, the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Wa and Art Intersection in Arizona, among others.

In addition to exhibitions, his imagery is represented by Getty Images, Adobe Images, Stocksy United, and Cavan Images, placing his vision into international circulation.

Schmidbauer’s practice remains rooted in observation and patience — creating photographs that function both as documents of change and as meditations on what endures.