Karl Kernberger (1938-1997) was a noted photographer, filmmaker and public television producer with a gifted artistic eye, guided by a cultural sensitivity. His work was published extensively in books and publications, has been widely broadcast on television and in movies, and has been exhibited numerous times in New Mexico, Arizona and California.

His photography is now held by the following museums and archives:

• University of New Mexico Center for Southwest Research

• New Mexico History Museum - Palace of the Governors photo archives

• New Mexico Museum of Indian Arts & Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology

• New Mexico Indian Affairs Department

• Silver City Museum (NM)

• University of Washington photo archives

• Johnsons of Madrid (NM), Madrid Cultural Projects

• San Mateo (CA) Japanese American Community Center

• National Parks Chaco Archives

• New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM

• Santa Fe Opera, NM

• NM Historic Preservations Division

Born in Los Angeles, Karl began developing his photographic talent early. He was drawn to the indigenous people of Arizona and New Mexico, and graduated from the University of New Mexico with a degree in anthropology. After working as a photographer for the Museum of New Mexico in the early 1960s, he became an independent illustrative photographer. 

He photographed natural, cultural and historical subjects, mostly in the Southwestern US, doing the photography for three books with his childhood friend J. Michael Jenkinson: Ghost Towns of New Mexico, Land of Clear Light, and Wild Rivers of North America.

In 1963, with Jenkinson and three others, Kernberger drove through Canada to Alaska, and then, in two small boats, made a trip down the entire length of the Yukon River. Beginning in Lake Bennett, in both British Columbia and the Yukon Territory of Canada, he and Jenkinson completed the 2300-mile journey to Alakanuk, on the Bering Sea. Their companion Bill Carpenter flew back to New Mexico from Dawson City, Yukon Territory, and companions Rafen Moon (Kathy) Jenkinson and John Loehr traveled farther, flying out from Holy Cross, Alaska. A Swiss reporter, Maurice Bettex, also joined them for some of the 3-month river trip. Karl documented this trip with still pictures and with over three hours of 16mm color motion picture film. He filmed the riverscape, the landscape, and the people, planning to produce a film with the working title of “The Yukon River - A Portrait”. He began editing it, and later transferred the film to 1” videotape. He returned to the Yukon and Alaska in 1989 with his family to record natural sounds and some interviews, but then he continued worldwide adventuring until his early death in 1997 and never completed the project.

Until 1983 he was based in Santa Fe, and was involved in many projects, political and photographic, many with indigenous Americans. He did the primary photography for Polly Schaafsma’s Indian Rock Art of the Southwest. He was the only photographer to follow the entire 1980 reenactment of the run which initiated the 1680 Pueblo Revolt, documented in Peter Nabokov’s Indian Running.

Karl photographed the Tarahumara (Raramuri) people between 1959-1971, portraying their daily life in Copper Canyon (Barranca del Cobre), located in the Sierra Madre Mountains in Chihuahua, Mexico.

He also did cinematography of the Sun Dagger site at Chaco Canyon, NM, for a 1980 PBS documentary, as well as extensive still photography there during solstices and equinoxes. One of those still photos is featured in the 1982 film Koyaanisqatsi, and several photos were published in Science and Science News. He was the cinematographer for a 1975 program of the Cook Islands Maori by the Smithsonian and National Geographic, as well as a 1977 program of Spanish folk dances of New Mexico through the NM Arts Division. 

Karl Kernberger was committed to social justice, capturing images documenting political movements, meetings, and demonstrations between 1965-1970 in New Mexico. He photographed the Poor People’s Campaign March on Washington, DC, in 1968. From 1983 – 1991, he was an award-winning producer of public and cultural affairs programming at the public television station in Albuquerque, KNME, including two Rocky Mountain Emmy Awards.

In 1992-93 he lived with his family in Japan, photographing the activities at the public kindergarten that his daughter Serafina Kernberger attended. He took photographs around Kobe, Osaka and Kyoto, and down the island of Honshu on an extended bicycle trip. 

From 1993-96, Karl and his family lived on the Pacific island of Pohnpei, in the Federated States of Micronesia. Here, he initiated and produced the first ten of a series of public affairs and cultural affairs programs. This television series, Island Topics, was the first ever produced for the audience of the Micronesians themselves. In conjunction with the Jesuit organization Micronesian Seminar, these programs continued until at least 2008.