Erin Derby (b.1975. San Jose, CA) graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a BA in both Film and Latin American & Iberian Studies. Her early career was primarily photojournalism. Over time she evolved a fine art cynosure balanced with considerable commercial photography success. In the latter, she continues to do corporate portraiture, interiors and still-life work. Her early fine art work explored expired 4x5 polaroid and 35mm film, with its painterly quality. The strong imperfections of these aged mediums as well as their eroded hues communicated an ethereal quality to her botanical images. In her more recent work, Reimagining Nature, she has returned to botanicals. Working digitally and with her unique mindfulness for lighting and detail, she builds wholly new imagery. These results are at once familiar and strikingly unfamiliar. Of the earth yet other worldly. The images are bold, sensual and effervesce with light and color. Amazingly, they are concrete and ethereal simultaneously. And always there is a strong sense of the atmospheric.
Erin’s recent work was awarded the 2020 Prix de la Photographie Paris Bronze award, and an AI-AP American Photography selected winner. Her commercial work is widely published, including Architectural Digest, Epoca Magazine, House Beautiful as well as commissions for Donna Karan, Herman Miller, Gensler, Duralee, and Michael Aram.
Erin Derby lives in Brooklyn, NY.
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