We recently connected with Erika Erraez and have shared our conversation below.

Erika, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

One of the main things that I feel really grateful for is the fact that my parents raised my brother and I in different countries. Sometimes it was for personal reasons – wanting to take the family on a trip, visiting friends or family, etc. But it was mostly because we had to-for my father’s job specifically.
As a family, we ended up living in 5 different countries together- Guatemala, Serbia, Armenia, Israel, the United States, and Ecuador. The truth is that it was often really hard navigating all of this as a child because I craved stability. When we’re young, we’re impressionable and we get attached to things easily, so it’s hard having to leave things behind and start over. That being said, despite the difficulties I experienced at the time, I think my parents did something right by not worrying too much about the disadvantages that can come with moving around often. My parents bravely took chances on every single place we’ve lived in, and we’d explore them. Without really realizing it at the time, this opened up my mind and heart to the world around me because I got to see many different ways of living.
And whenever things got a bit too confusing for me given the different environments, it pushed me towards finding some sort of retreat to make sense of it all. The retreat just so happened to be creative expression whether it was drawing, writing, painting or taking photos. Overall, I think is what impacted me the most and drove me towards an artistic path.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

To offer some background about who I am, my name is Erika and I am an Ecuadorian/American street photographer although I’ve actually had quite an international upbringing. I was born in Guatemala, and I spent the first 10 years of my life in Belgrade, Serbia and I have since lived in Armenia, Israel, the United States, Ecuador and France. I identify strongly with my international upbringing because I believe it helped to instill more curiosity within me. Additionally, my mom is a painter who mostly specializes in Byzantine art, and this influenced me greatly as a child because I was surrounded by her artistic process. I got to witness that it was possible to work by doing what you love, and that you didn’t need to depend on another person or an institution to make it happen. So, if I had to answer how I got into my discipline, this would be the very beginning of it all! My upbringing really gave me the courage to play around with different mediums, whether it was drawing, embroidery, photography, writing, or collage. Honestly, I never really knew where I was going with any of my artistic exploration. I knew that I identified with some mediums more than others – such as drawing. But it was always something very personal to me. It was satisfying enough to draw for myself and I didn’t always have an urge to share it with the world or to market it. So, time went on and I continued to create different things here and there, and I only shared my work occasionally. Often times, it was just my drawings or paintings.
But suddenly, in early 2023 just a few months after I moved to Paris, France, I received a proper camera as a gift – a Canon EOS t5i. It was then that something new began. I began taking my camera with me almost everywhere, and because the city was the most accessible thing to me, that is exactly what I decided to start photographing. It happened very naturally and street photography is a genre I now feel extremely close to. It’s a special thing really, because there is no directing when it comes to street photography. You go onto the streets without knowing what to expect and you rely on your own unique, personal way of noticing the world around you. Suddenly, something inside of you pushes you to lift the camera, and the shutter clicks. Then there it is, you’re face to face with a very real, brief moment in time. And if you’re lucky and you like what you’ve captured, that moment is here to stay.
So, when it comes to what creative works I provide, I’d like to think that I provide my audience with documentation of the world in an unfiltered and diverse manner. I actively try my best to share bits and pieces of real life respectfully and truthfully and I think this is what sets me apart from others. That being said, I think many people value the truth. It’s just that we all tell truths differently and I always want to contribute to that, because I’m not sure that anything is meaningful or impactful unless some truth is tied to it. That’s what I want my audience to feel as well, I would hope that they see my creative work and feel like they’re witnessing an authentic moment that was captured from a place of respectful appreciation and curiosity.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

To be frank, I am still developing the ultimate goal of my creative journey, because there’s so many different mediums that I enjoy working with and there’s a lot more that I wish to explore. It just so happens that photography is the medium that I feel drawn to recently. So for now, I am exploring street & documentary photography, with an emphasis on humans as subjects. But one day, I know that I want to create a community where I, and people from different backgrounds, can collaborate to produce multimedia projects that focus on telling real stories about individuals and communities. I know very well how powerful storytelling is, and if I could leave people feeling more accepted, and educated via visual storytelling, that would mean a lot to me.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

As cliche as it might sound, I think the hardships I experience as a creative are what feel the most rewarding to me. I struggle a lot, and that’s the truth. Sometimes I create something and it comes out quite smoothly but most of the time, there’s a lot of doubt that comes into play. I think that’s completely normal, and I think doubt is almost always there but sometimes it’s very strong. And so, I find incredibly satisfying when I’ve been working on a piece and I find that I’ve managed to pass through all of the difficulties because I’ve gotten to know myself better. I get closer to understanding what I’m capable of in that moment, as well as what I’m not capable of. But that doesn’t mean there’s no hope for capability in the future. It’s just about bringing awareness to both. Because as soon as you are aware of what you can or can’t do in the present moment, you can gauge what barriers you might experience in your next piece of work, and how to work with it, not against it. Don’t get me wrong, viewing the final product is really rewarding as well but the reason why it feels rewarding is because I know its story. I know what it took to turn a thought, or a feeling, into something tangible. So…overall, I think the hardships are the most rewarding because it brings me closer towards expressing my unfiltered self in the purest way possible.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://erika-erraezart-99.squarespace.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erikaerraez__/

Image Credits
Image Credits: Thea Minea