After receiving her BFA from the University of Idaho, Kari spent the summer of 2004 as an intern at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Helena, Montana. There she met Rebecca Hutchinson, the award-winning sculptor, who invited her to do an artist residency at UMass Dartmouth the following year. Kari spent her residency creating the series “Skin and Bone,” which explored the anatomy of the human body through porcelain and photography. 

Kari then went on to become Director of Photography at William Arthur, a high-end stationery company focusing on custom design. Here she was in charge of all product shoots, including the company’s marketing materials for print and web as well as images for several national advertising campaigns across three brands. 

The springboard for her career as a full-time photographer came in 2009, when Kari spent seven weeks in Rockport, Maine at the Maine Media Workshops. In the 11 years since then, Kari has traveled the world and worked with some of the largest retail sales groups as a full-time photographer. Her vivid portrayals of botanical specimens have landed her collaborations with Anthropologie, IKEA, Land of Nod, and Restoration Hardware and her photo appeared on iPhone billboards from Monterrey, Mexico to Mumbai and Bangalore in India to New York. She has conducted more than a dozen photography workshops and has been a featured speaker at conferences throughout the world. 

More recently she has worked closer to home. In her community of Yarmouth, Maine, and along with two other local women, their guided journal, Take Two: A Journal for New Beginnings, was published by Chronicle Books in 2021, and debuted in the latest issue of Stanford Magazine. Kari has photographed for renowned businesses like Maine Health, nonprofits like The Dempsey Center and The Harold Alfond Foundation, and celebrated local restaurants like Duckfat and Maine Craft Distilling. 

“Over my career I’ve photographed my best friend giving birth, NFL players holding babies, a little boy’s surgery, and a doctor turning on his “ears” to hear for the first time. I assisted photographer Sam Abell in Texas on a five-day photoshoot with Cindy Crawford. Cindy was just as beautiful in person as I remember her drinking Pepsi when I was fifteen years old.

I’m proud and grateful for this career and the life I’m able to provide for my children. One thing will always be true: I would never have been given so many opportunities or traveled as far as I have without my camera in hand.” - Kari Herer