Sometimes simple portraits, executed with insight and a deeper seeing are just the tonic. Erika Huffman’s quiet black and white portraits draw me in and make me want to revisit their gaze.

Erika was born in Denver, Colorado and raised in Oregon. She moved to Copenhagen, Denmark in 1993 as a young adult and studied at Roskilde University before moving back to Portland where she graduated from Portland State University with a degree in Cultural Anthropology. Her work has been featured in exhibitions and in publications throughout the U.S.

In the winter of 2010 I bought a DSLR camera with the intention of taking pictures of my 8 month old son. My slow compact camera just wasn’t fast enough to keep up with my son, or so said the salesman who talked me into spending several hundred dollars more than I had initially intended. I drove home from the store with buyer’s remorse, wondering why I had let myself be suckered into spending so much money. When I looked through my new camera’s viewfinder for the first time, however, I was reminded of my love of photography that I had long ago forgotten. I am a shy and introverted person by nature but have a strong desire to connect with people. Photography allows me a safe place to do that.  These photographs are a record of shared moments of intimacy and are, as such, reflections of both myself and my subjects.