[petepete]

Doesn't a lightbox make the rest of the page dark? Amazon doesn't do this, the carousel doesn't take up any more space than the original image.

[wonderlg]

The core difference is that a “carousel” as intended here generally contains text, and that’s specifically why it’s a bad pattern.

“Scroll-through” photo albums are a fair way to display photos, however I still personally prefer a gallery for photos instead, exactly like it works on your phone for example (gallery + “lightbox”)