Using the Whole Earth Catalog (forerunner to the internet), Mike ordered his first camera, the Nikon F2sb and a 70mm-210mm Vivitar Series One lens. Klemme started regularly photographing nature at the nearby Great Salt Plains National Wildlife Preserve. Soon, it became obvious that photography was the passion he had been searching for, and it was going to have to fund itself, if he was going to continue to spend time on film, processing. travel and equipment.

College friend Steve Bradley, who was working as the general manager of Oak Tree Country Club in Edmond, Oklahoma, knew of Mike's nature work, and asked if he would be interested in photographing their golf course for a number of promotional materials, and to decorate their enormous clubhouse. The assignment was a success, and strong relationships began with Landmark Land Company and famed golf architect, Pete Dye. Mike will forever be grateful to Steve Braley for this once in a lifetime opportunity. Thanks, Steve!

In the fall of 1984, Mike formed Golfoto, Inc., which included his golf course photography, combined with graphic design services for golf courses, country clubs, resorts, and real estate developments. The lucky break came when they applied to display their services at the annual PGA Merchandise Show, which happens every January in Orlando, Florida. Nearly all of their initial working capital was expended on creating a fabulous brochure that was handed out to hundreds of leads at the event. A massive stack of business cards were collected at the event, and follow ups began. Work was booked all over the US, and these became the first of more than 1,800 golf courses to be photographed over the next 40 years.

Mike was introduced to Mark Brown, who had recently started up a new magazine in Hilton Head, South Carolina, called "Southern Links," that was featuring golf course real estate developments in the Southeast US. They were also running some golf travel articles, as well. They asked Klemme to be the director of photography for the magazine and he started traveling to Jamaica, Hawaii, Canada and resorts and real estate developments all over the southeast. 

Mike's work with the magazine soon caught the attention of GOLF Magazine and they were working with Harry Abrams, Inc., the New York based art book publisher to do a string of golf related titles. His first project with them was a book called Grand Slam Golf that highlighted all of the courses where the US Open, Masters, PGA Championship and British Open had been played. The book was written by George Peper and Mike Klemme got to visit the hallowed grounds of all of these courses over a two-year period. 

Before the Grand Slam book was completed, Abrams asked if Klemme would be interested in doing the principal photography for a book called Golf Resorts of the World which was being written by his friend, Brian McCallen which would require visiting 100 golf resorts in twenty-five countries in three years. This beautiful book sold 100,000 copies. 

As a result of his association with Golf Magazine, Mike was asked to be a member of their Top 100 Golf Courses in the World and The Top 100 Golf Courses in the US in 1990. He was proud to serve on this committee until 2020. 

Following the two book projects and with the continued growth of golf courses in the US and around the world, Mike started receiving calls from resorts, real estate developments and country clubs as well as working with a number of name golf course architects to photograph their work for their promotion and for the promotion of their clients. Names like Arnold Palmer, Tom Weiskopf, Gary Player, Greg Norman, Tom Watson began hiring Mike to photograph properties around the globe. During this era, over 5,000,000 frequent flyer miles were racked up traveling to nearly fifty countries.

Following the disaster of 911, golf travel took a massive hit, that combined with twenty years of overbuilding golf courses across the US brought the industry to a near standstill. Mike had been traveling nearly 200 days per year for twenty years and it was obvious that it was time to make a change. Mike’s Dad, Bob, was a historian and had ingrained the history into Mike from an early age. Due to this indoctrination, Mike realized that his home state of Oklahoma was planning to celebrate their centennial in 2007. Mike approached The Oklahoma Centennial Commission about the possibility of becoming the Official Photographer of the Centennial. The proposal was accepted and Mike began his journey to every county in Oklahoma over the next two years. While accomplishing the photographic work, he pulled together a small team of designers, writers, and tech staff to produce, market, sell and fulfill a self-published book entitled, Celebrating Oklahoma! Which ultimately sold nearly 25,000 copies. 

Soon after completing Celebrating Oklahoma! Mike worked with his local economic development team in his hometown of Enid, Oklahoma to produce his second self-published book entitled, Celebrating Enid! 

In 2009 Mike was contacted by a local bank who wanted to use photographs from the two books to brand their facility and speak to their agriculture based clientele. Mike designed a model for planning, designing, creating, crafting and installing framed artwork that he is still using today. After about a dozen of these installations, he was contacted by Integris Healthcare, a large healthcare provider based in Oklahoma who was building a new world class cancer facility. After spending several weeks touring the facility while still under construction and learning about cancer patients, their mental states and the same about staff, Mike worked out an art plan that included nearly 300 large scale images that spoke to those who worked or visited the facility including families of patients. This was the beginning of a relationship that resulted in the hanging of over 5,000 photos in their healthcare facilities over the next dozen years. 

In 2012 Mike and his son, Brett decided that it was time for them to take more control over the production of photographic prints and frames. They had recently purchased a 7,500sf building in downtown Enid, Oklahoma that they were remodeling into eight small office spaces and a 3,000sf production facility. A large format printer was purchased along with a digital frame saw and Pinner to control every aspect of their installations from initial concept to hanging on their customer’s walls. 

In 2019 Mike was invited to serve as one of eight “Team Captain” for Oklahoma Lt. Governor Matt Pinnell’s initiative to rebrand the State of Oklahoma. For many years, our state had used a number of iconic symbols that represented our history our cultures and our geography, but we had never had a single cohesive brand that represented our many cultures, climate zones (11) and topography. Our Lt. Governor and Department of Commerce partnered with a Canadian branding firm and over 100 marketing professionals from around the state to come up with that brand that spoke for all our citizens. I was proud to be a part of this historic process.