The LV in Las Vegas

I have an extreme love/hate relationship with Las Vegas. I love the food. I love the energy. I love the visuals. I love the stimulation. But I hate the purpose and the sole reason for Las Vegas’ existence. It is a magnificent desert drained by the behemoth of humanity’s opulence and overtly outrageous drive for more. The stark contrast to nature is superior to all cities but few, and the resources to make it grander are what suffer the most. I often say The best part of Vegas is when you’re leaving Vegas.

But I love Vegas because it is a rare chance to walk the streets and gawk at the marvel of it all. It is manmade’s most wildest, daring, and creative. It is like the conception of the nearby Hoover Dam, a neighboring monstrosity impeding the natural flow of the West’s greatest and most wildest tributary. It is like the drawing of an island in the shape of a palm in the mild of a desert oasis, and actually having the wherewithal to do it so large that 25,000 residents can live there. Las Vegas is like the discovery of fire and the evolution of its usages to advance modernity.

These images were taken with the Leica Q2 after days on production, mostly in the fading light to near complete darkness (however nothing is not illuminated in Las Vegas).

For more visit www.CameronKarsten.com | www.The-Subconscious.com

Detritus

There are moments in time, places that have come and gone. We see things with limited scope, and experience the world around with the smallest of spans. Waking and sleeping, living and dying. There is nothing so fragile as the time we breathe.

It is all like an ocean; the passing of tides, a revolution of one great current. Water, water and more endless streams of water. In the air, on the ground, captivated by gravity. The Detritus of our imaginations.

Visit www.CameronKarsten.com for more

The Forgiven Seasons – Walk on the Wild Side

Watching your child grow is a masterclass in many things: obviously patience, but equally wonder, humility, happiness, frustration, the shouldas and the wouldas… and the yins and yangs of one’s own personality. It is to be active and inactive. It is to be protective yet withholding any fears. It is to be a teacher and a student at the same exact moment in time.

The Forgiven Seasons is an ongoing visual witnessing of youth as they grow from isolation into a limitless world limited by the constraints of yesteryear’s residuals. They grow from a singularity into a fevered exploration of what is what. In this journey, they step into the moss-laden forests to use their imaginations of young and old, discovering the nooks and crannies of old wood in search of faeries; a Walk on the Wild Side.

For more visit www.CameronKarsten.com

Photo Essay: Wood – A Story from the Olympic Peninsula (Pt. III)

Photo Essay: Wood – A Story from the Olympic Peninsula (Pt. II)

As I continue to drive out into the Olympic Peninsula, camera bags full and surf gear packed, I slowly observe the culture of a timber industry unfolding before my eyes.  It is a people’s livelihood, their subsistence within the forest, bringing shelters over families heads and food to their hungry tables.  And for the blue collar, it is not a wealthy industry.  They are the cutters, sawers, operators, drivers and haulers of a civilization taking over the wild places.

With video files and the numerous still images of the cold cloudy spring passing over the Northwest wilderness, this project is evolving into an unbiased perspective of Man vs. Nature, and how the two can equally subsist; prosper side by side and thrive within one another.

Below is the second essay of imagery and visual thoughts from a story of wood deep within the Olympic Peninsula.

Photo Essay: Wood – a Story from the Olympic Peninsula (Pt. I)

Wood; a precious commodity.  Cut, sawed, shaped, nailed, lacquered, stained.  Occasionally it’s replanted, and years later, generations gone, money is made again.  Wood is money.  The forests are for sale, for their resources, for their lands, for their habitat.  The following images are the start of a multimedia project telling the tale of wood, from origin to combustion, and the phases of transition in-between.  How does it effect us?  How does it feed us?  How is the life under our feet and that above our heads impacted today, tomorrow and those generations ahead?

Seattle Central Creative Academy: Photography Assignment (George Hurrell Heavy-Set)

A George Hurrell-inspired photography assignment creating a classy black and white 1920’s film noir/glamour shot.  Involved set construction, props, wardrobe and some serious lighting skills.  Here is my mortician with a new patient waiting behind the walls.

Location: SCCA Studios, Seattle, WA

Model: William O’Donnell

Camera/Lens Specifics: Canon 5D Mark II with Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM Telephoto Zoom Lens

70mm, 1/100 sec at ƒ/7.1, ISO 100, tripod mount.

Post: Adobe LR3 & PS5

Photo Essay: The Great Scapes by California

Photo Essay: Flora & Fauna of Indo

Photo Essay: French Noir