Very different approach, but yeah - I would personally make the images smaller or possibly put a card with some text to the side, or perhaps an overlay. :)

I like the bare bones idea you have with creating this carousel - only CSS and HTML.

Some friendly suggestions: I would make the images smaller, and not take up the whole page.

.carousel__viewport {
  position: absolute;
  top: 0;
  right: 0;
  bottom: 0;
  left: 0;
  display: flex;
  overflow-x: scroll;
  counter-reset: item;
  scroll-behavior: smooth;
  scroll-snap-type: x mandatory;
}

.carousel__slide {
  position: relative;
  flex: 0 0 100%;
  width: 100%;
  background-color: #f99;
  counter-increment: item;
}

Here is a Codepen link of the idea I was talking about.