Downtown Hartford was also where Ms. O'Maxfield chose to "hang out" with friends during her teenage years, enjoying the Friday night gatherings of young people at the Blue Door Coffeehouse on Lewis Street; the 'little Haight-Ashbury' district of Church Street; be-ins at Bushnell Park and the boutiques along Union Place.

Upon graduating from Conard High School in 1969, Ms. O'Maxfield left the area, choosing to gain her "higher education" by exploring the United States in a van with friends. After crisscrossing the country several times, she settled in Portland, Maine, married, and started a family.

At the age of 30, she made the decision to formalize her education and enrolled in the BFA program at the University of Southern Maine as a photography major.

Karen had always been interested in photography, purchasing her first camera at age seven with bubble gum wrappers. It was a tiny plastic model but actually worked. Through her teens and twenties, Ms. O’Maxfield kept her Kodak Instamatic close at hand, documenting activities with friends and family. But it was when she discovered 35mm SLR technology that her interest in photography became a passion. The desire to see the extraordinary in the simple, ordinary places, people and objects in her life shaped her creative vision.

Returning to Connecticut in 1985, Ms. O’Maxfield continued to evolve her photographic vision, exhibited regularly, had photos purchased by corporate and private collectors and began seeing her work published. In 1996, she founded her own business, Studio O’Maxfield which specializes in fine art stock photography and graphic design services.

She currently resides in Hartford and is very active in the community, having co-founded the Fairfield Avenue Neighbors Association and successfully accomplished attaining National Historic District status for the entire street on which she lives with her husband, Gary Goldberg-O'Maxfield. Karen also serves as President of the Friends of Vintage Base Ball, a 501(c)3 nonprofit that she co-founded in order to provide living history programming in Hartford through 19th century era base ball events in the Coltsville National Landmark area of Hartford.