Erika Langley (born 1967) is an American

photojournalist Photojournalism is journalism that uses images to tell a news story. It usually only refers to still images, but can also refer to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (suc ...

and writer.

Early life and education

Born in

Arlington, Virginia Arlington County, or simply Arlington, is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Virginia. The county is located in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from Washington, D.C., the nati ...

in 1967, she has been based in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

, Washington since 1992. She worked from 1992 to 2004 as dancer at the

Lusty Lady The Lusty Lady is a pair of defunct peep show establishments, one in downtown Seattle and one in the North Beach, San Francisco, California, North Beach district of San Francisco. The Lusty Lady was made famous by the labor activism of its San F ...

, a peep show in Seattle. Langley is a graduate of the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase th ...

Work

Her 1997 book, ''The Lusty Lady: Photographs and Texts'' combined memoir, photographs, and sections about several of her co-workers there. She originally became interested in the Lusty Lady in terms of photographing dancers, but was informed by management that the only way she would have access to do that was if she danced there herself. She ended up working there for twelve years. The photos she took there resulted in her book ''The Lusty Lady'' and in several art exhibits including one in 1994 that an administrator of the King County Arts Commission Gallery described at the time as that gallery's "most potentially controversial exhibit." Her work was given an entire wall of the 1999–2000

Seattle Art Museum The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, United States. The museum operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in ...

exhibit "Hereabouts: Northwest Pictures by Seven Photographers," after the same museum had canceled a 1998 exhibit at almost the last minute. More recently, Langley has been documenting the erosion of Washaway Beach at

North Cove North Cove is a village and civil parish in the north of the English county of Suffolk. It is part of the East Suffolk district, located around east of Beccles and west of Lowestoft. It merges with the village of Barnby and the villages sh ...

just south of Grayland, Washington, one of the fastest eroding places in the Western Hemisphere. Her work is included in the collection of the Seattle Art Museum.

Notes

External links

Erika Langley Photography official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Langley, Erika 1967 births Living people Journalists from Arlington County, Virginia Rhode Island School of Design alumni Writers from Seattle 21st-century American women writers American photojournalists American women photojournalists 21st-century American women photographers 21st-century American photographers