Leica Q2 – Cameron Karsten's Imaginarium

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

The Forgotten Seasons: Down the Pacific and Back

As part of an on-going series titled The Forgotten Seasons, I’m constantly training my eye on my family, not only as a father and partner, but as a photographer, seeking those moment of joy and elation, those times of overt emotion and strained tension, as well as the things of pure absolute beauty.

The project began back during 2020 Covid lockdown, when our expanding worlds as a young family shrunk and became isolated. Work disappeared and we found ways to be creative with what was within our immediate circles. To keep developing my career among the long hours of idleness, I enrolled in an online photography program taught by David Alan Harvey, and it was here I was encouraged to pursue the muses right in front of me; the ever-changing growth and evolution of familyhood.

This current series reflects an end-of-the-summer roadtrip, with our parental patience already worn thin, down the Pacific Coast and back before the long-awaited start of the next school year.