Kiana Taguchi Bates knew from the time she was a young teenager that she wanted to be a professional photographer. She started Kiana Bates Photo when she was 15 years old; shooting annual school pictures and family photos of many of her classmates. Behind the lens, Kiana recognizes that photography memorializes people, places, moments, and feelings. It also opened up a world of relationships, cultures, and history. Despite living in the age of instant, digital photography, while studying at BYU, Kiana fell in love with the photographic medium that dates back to the Civil War: wet plate collodion (tintype) photography. Kiana has photographed clients in the deep snow of the high mountains of Utah to castle backdrops in Japan, from the hot desert of Arizona to the beauty of the Atlantic Coast.
Kiana's Japanese heritage has greatly influenced her life and the way she sees the world. Her grandmother, Baachan, has been a vital collaborator and muse on many projects, including most recently their cookbook, Cooking with Baachan.