Cameron Karsten's Imaginarium

Here’s a retrospective of my path to commercial photography via Seattle Central’s Creative Academy. Always a treat to have someone interested in your story, and the hope to inspire others to follow their dreams. Original post can be found here.

For budding photographers, Seattle Central Creative Academy alumni Cameron Karsten (‘12 [I think ’13…]) offers simple, yet pragmatic advice: “Shoot what you love.”

After developing a passion for photography while backpacking and blogging across the globe, Karsten was eager to turn his passion into a career. Now, as a highly sought-after commercial photographer with an expansive clientele, he has made a living from capturing those very things he loves: hiking, surfing, and fishing.

Raised in California and the Pacific Northwest, Karsten developed an early love for the outdoors. “I was an explorer,” he explained. “I was outside most of the time, whether it was riding bikes, fishing for salmon in the fall, or just experiencing nature.” Karsten also feels lucky that his single mom instilled in him a love of travel from a young age too and recalled driving to Mexico several times a year when the family was based in southern California. “And so that imbued a love of travel and of going somewhere new and not knowing the final destination,” he added.

When Karsten wasn’t exploring outside, he recreated scenes from the outdoors in the classroom. He never gravitated towards formal art classes, instead filling his notebooks for other subjects with realistic sketches. “I’d picture a place that I wanted to go, and I would draw it realistically,” he said. “And I think that also played into telling stories with pictures, instead of with words.”

Karsten attended college in Los Angeles, where he quickly realized city life wasn’t for him. “I didn’t like much of anything except the ocean down there,” he admitted. This dissatisfaction led him to take what he thought would be a one-year break from college — a gap year that ended up stretching into six years of travel around the world.

Karsten’s goal during this academic hiatus was to become a writer. “I was collecting stories and characters, learning through real-world experiences rather than studying books and taking tests,” he explained. At first, Karsten would hunker down at internet cafes to write stories to his friends and family. But when he discovered a travel blog community of fellow backpackers, he started sharing his travelling tales to a much more global audience under the blog name cam2yogi, a nod to his deep interest in Buddhist philosophy he developed travelling through Asia.

It was during this time that Karsten’s interest in photography began to take shape as well. With his film camera — and later, a tiny digital point-and-shoot gifted by his family — he began using photography to complement his written storytelling.

To his surprise, readers praised his photos as much as — and sometimes more than — his writing. “People would say, ‘your photos are fantastic.’ Because of that encouragement and feedback, I started falling in love with taking pictures and looked forward to capturing the best moment to include in whatever story I was trying to tell.” As his network and skills grew, Karsten sold some of his blog posts as articles to smaller travel magazines.

After six years of wandering the world with his pack, his stories, and his cameras, Karsten returned to the Pacific Northwest — and felt more restless than ever. His travels had provided him with a wealth of experiences, but he was still searching for a way to channel his creativity into a sustainable career.

It was a woman he met — now his wife — who helped him put down roots in Seattle. She worked as a photo stylist at the time and connected Karsten to several commercial photographer contacts.

“I realized that the whole traveling lifestyle was going to be on pause because I was in this serious relationship, and I started learning more about the commercial world and what was available to me as a career,” he said. “And every commercial photographer I worked with within the Seattle area was like, ‘Hey, if you want to do this seriously, go back to school.’”

Karsten took their advice and looked into Seattle Central College’s Creative Academy. “It was a no-brainer,” he said. “The program was highly recommended and close to home.” He enrolled in the two-year Commercial Photography program, which has since been folded into the current Visual Media program.

At Seattle Central, Karsten found the structure and mentorship he needed to hone his craft. “The first year was all about learning the fundamentals of commercial photography — like continuous versus strobe lighting,” he said. By the second year, the structure of the program shifted towards encouraging students to find their niche and lean into their creative strengths to set them up for real-world success. For Karsten, that meant focusing on storytelling through outdoor photography.

“Growing up in nature, I could not stand being in the studio working with inanimate objects,” he said. His instructors, like the retired Alejandro Tomas and the late Robert Milne, recognized his passion and gave him the freedom to pursue it. “They said, ‘If you want to be outside, go be outside.’ That support made all the difference.”

“[This photo] resembles my path to steer away from the studio and practice my light skills to shoot outside,” Karsten said referencing the following photo from his days as a student at the Creative Academy.

Karsten remembers feeling like he was in a vastly different stage of life than his classmates who were fresh out of high school. He and his wife were starting a family by his second year of the program, and knew he had to take school seriously. “It was my career,” he said.

He credits his professors, Tomas and Milne, with imparting the technical skills necessary to make his career but also offering mentorship that bridged the gap between the classroom and the professional world.

“I loved the one-on-one conversations with them,” he recalled. “They weren’t just teachers — they were adults, and I could relate to them. Those conversations were less about school and more about photography as a career. That’s what really stands out to me.”

After graduating from Central in 2012 (2013…), Karsten made it his goal to build up a professional portfolio of work while simultaneously enjoying his favorite outdoor activities in the Pacific Northwest. He took his camera with him whenever he and his friends would camp, hike, or hit up the beach.

Karsten tried photographing surfing at first, but found it was too hard to stay off the waves. He realized that shooting his friends fly fishing was different, and it soon became a subject that dominated his portfolio. This work also caught the eye of his first major client, Grundéns, a commercial fishing gear company.

“I brought a really nice, printed portfolio and as [the marketing professional] was going through my work, he was like, ‘Hey, this is great. You want to go to Norway?’ and I was like, ‘what!?’” he explained. “So, the next thing I knew, I was on a plane to Norway to photograph cod fishing for this company. And from there we went to Guatemala, the Florida Keys, and Alaska.”

By continuing to capture subjects he was passionate about, Karsten’s portfolio expanded to include work with other high profile outdoor recreation and technology brands, like Patagonia and Garmin Marine.

In recent years, Karsten has returned to Seattle Central, not as a student but as a professional, supporting the college in a variety of photography and videography projects.

“I’m always like, ‘Yep, let me block my calendar because of course I’m there for you,” he shared. “It’s part of just paying it forward and trying to give them my all, since they gave me their all and got me to where I am today,” he said.

While Karsten continues to shoot a variety of subjects for his clients, he finds the most enjoyment — and conveniently, work — shooting those very things he loves, like nature and outdoor recreation, echoing the subject matter he captured on the point-and-shoot he carried with him throughout his backpacking adventures. “When it’s a personal project, your passion shows through, and that’s what attracts clients,” he said.

He travels less now, prioritizing quality time with his wife and two daughters, eight and 10, but still cherishes every moment he gets to spend outside with a camera in hand.

As Karsten prepares for his next project (Nov. ’24) — photographing warm-water fishing in Baja California for Grundéns — he reflects on the impact Seattle Central has had on his less-than-traditional path. “Seattle Central gave me the tools, the trust, and the freedom to build a career I love.”

For more visit www.CameronKarsten.com | www.the-subconscious.com