You never know the value of a photograph until that is all you have left
I am Pete Carstensen
Pete began his photographic journey at 8 years old when a family friend put an 8mm video camera in his hand. Later, in both Junior and Senior High School, he served as the Chief Photographer for the school yearbooks and honed his skills with developing and printing his shots in his own extensive darkroom. In college, he found a love of business and computers which took him on new journeys into the world of banking, electronic processing and computer networks.
In 1990, Pete moved his family to Arizona. It did not take long to fall in love with the beauty and openness of the Arizona back country. His earlier love of photography was inching closer to the surface with each issue of Arizona Highways and their amazing photographers, even though he didn’t realize it at the time.

In 2013, Pete gave his wife a present of a “Boudoir Session” with a local photographer. They had such a good time and she looked amazing. The spark in her eye from the session became a roaring fire for him as he discovered how the computers he had spent so many years with had married the cameras he had put away so very long ago. The possibilities were endless and so exciting. He felt reborn and anxious to discover this wonderful world of digital photography and how he could bring his art to help women feel and look beautiful.
Over these past few years, Pete has worked hard to explore and learn from the best. He has taken pictures of hundreds of subjects, from everyday women who wanted to feel better about themselves and how they looked, to aspiring male and female models of all ages, and even world class models with years of experience. Pete continues to evolve his art and explore new ideas that highlight the beauty within.
The world is what we make it. As a photographer, it is his job to capture the moments that give us pause; that make us smile and help us feel pretty; that promote the inner emotional spark up to the eyes; to tell the story – of life