Under the Pencil: Sharing powerful stories with Erica Robinson.
Erica Robinson is a photographer, traveler, educator, and storyteller. Always an artist, she sought out photography classes from a nearby community college when her high school offered none and knew immediately she’d found what she wanted to do. When her journey through life led to a cancer diagnosis in 2022, she never imagined how her experience, her wit, and her photography would help her share her unique and difficult story — and the stories of many others.
SmugMug and This Week in Photo (TWiP) had a chance to sit down with Erica to discuss her experience, and how one self-portrait grew into an entire project: Under the Pencil. Read more about her process, the project, and challenges below, and make sure to listen to her podcast on TWiP here:
How would you describe what you do?
When I’m asked what I do, I keep it simple. I am a photographer and photography educator, focusing on travel photography and storytelling.
How did your photography interest evolve into a focus on travel, storytelling, and adventure?
In college, I’d planned to pursue sports photography. That lasted about a semester before I started to develop more of an interest in cameras themselves and darkroom printing. Then I spent a summer studying in Australia, and the year after college, I worked in Hawaii and Alaska as a photographer on a cruise line, which ignited my fire for travel and adventure. But what truly inspired my love for storytelling was actually wedding photography. I knew quickly I didn’t want a career in the wedding industry, but investing in the skills it takes to document such important moments in people’s lives are skills that naturally carry forward.
How did that background influence Under the Pencil?
I believe a photography career should constantly be evolving, and being placed in a specific box with strict guidelines can limit growth as a creative. I’m not saying to spread yourself so thin it becomes impossible to produce quality work or it becomes a burden to develop necessary skills. But being accepting of new mediums and exploring new ideas can keep us out of creative ruts. Every one of my previous photography interests influenced Under the Pencil simply in the way that if I had not taken one path, who knows if this would be my current one. Travel taught me that flexibility is necessary and that there’s no scarcity in stories. Weddings taught me persistence, how to balance having a set list but to also dare to be different — and technical skills such as using multiple off-camera lights timed perfectly between two photographers. And learning how to push the boundaries of my camera equipment can be skills applied to any genre.
And how did Under the Pencil grow from a self-portrait to a portrait series?
Actually, it wasn’t even supposed to be a project. Photography is something that’s been with me nearly my whole life, and my camera has always been the tool to help me express what I was trying to express and share the stories I thought needed to be told. But at that point in my cancer journey, I was really disconnected from my camera. I couldn’t figure out the way I felt.
I feel like a lot of times there’s this kind of pressure from the arts world to produce something when a trauma happens. And I felt that pressure immediately. Actually, as soon as I got sick. So I had a big disconnect from my camera. And it was at this point where I made my photo.
I created a self-portrait right after I came home from a terrible MRI. For those of us who have had to get MRIs, typically it requires an injection for contrast and such. Unfortunately, when I went in for this one, they couldn’t find a vein because my veins had been completely trashed due to chemo. So they told me I was going to get a deep-vein ultrasound so I could have a better MRI outcome. I thought that meant they were going to take the goo, stick it on my arm, and they were just going to find a better vein.
I was very wrong. They wanted to do a PICC line, which meant they had to do a little surgery on the inside of my arm to put a PICC line in directly to a catheter to get the contrast. At that point, I was not in a very good place mentally.
So I came home, and I made this portrait, and it felt wrong. It didn’t feel finished. First of all, it was a terrible portrait when it comes to equipment and such. I didn’t set any lights up. I didn’t set up a backdrop. I used the wall in my living room, set up my camera, and held the trigger behind my head.
It wasn’t supposed to turn into a project. This was something I was creating as an art form for me to try and understand what was going on inside myself. Once I finished it, I brought it up on my iPad and — at that point, writing was really my form of expression — so I started writing all over this portrait.
I wrote the medical jargon that was difficult to understand. I wrote the emotional side of it. I wrote the witty, sarcastic style that fits my personality. And it spiraled from there. It was the first time I felt heard. Even if I was the only one listening to myself, I felt heard for the first time.
And that was actually part of the beginning of this project for me: when someone would ask me how I’m doing. My response could be a minute or it could be six hours, depending how much time you have. This was me trying to share the overwhelmed without overwhelming someone.
That’s where the writing came in. If you want to know what’s going on, everything is right here. Everything’s right in front of you. I can put it out all at once instead of feeling like I’m constantly the topic or the one that’s giving too much information.
Did your experience being in front of the lens influence how you interacted with your subjects? If so, in what ways?
I wasn’t used to having the camera being directed at me. I’m used to being the one behind the camera, talking with people, or learning a new space and sharing that story — not about me.
Even if I had no intention of making this public, it was something that felt invasive in a way I wasn’t used to. I had to get used to that invasiveness and see it in a good way — a way that felt productive and real and raw. Because the more honest I was with myself, the better I was able to portray that. I wasn’t trying to create something that didn’t exist. I was trying to share something that already existed. And it was just about the language of getting it across. So I think it shifted a lot of how I approach my photography from here on out.
As I started to get in touch with the community a bit more, I realized how unique we actually are and how I’m not the only one who wants to share that voice.
Let’s say I have a twin, and my twin and I are diagnosed with the exact same disease at the exact same time, exact same size tumor, but there’s something about us that’s individually different. One of us could be married. One of us could have kids. One of us could live in California and the other could live in Ohio. There’s so many pieces to this puzzle that it’s never cookie cutter. I knew from the beginning I didn’t want to be seen as a number in a hospital where they’re diagnosing me based on what everybody else has done. I want to be seen as a human being.
So I got in touch with my breastie; if you have a friend in the breast cancer community, you call them your breastie. I wasn’t very involved in the community at that point, and she was. But I sat down one day and said, “I did this portrait and it was really cathartic for me. Do you think you’d want to try it?” And before I even finished the sentence, immediately she was in.
She came over, we made a portrait, and then I uploaded it to my iPad where she would be writing in Procreate. We brought it down to the park and sat outside for three hours. I just laid there and watched the world go by while she sat there and wrote.
I had a list of questions prepped and ready to go, thinking I would have to prompt her to help her remember some pieces of her journey and see what else she might want to add. But no, within those three hours she just continued to write.
At that point, I knew there was something really special about this because she was so invested in what she was doing. I think she, at that point, started to hear herself, too, just like I heard myself.
This is such an important subject that requires people to be very vulnerable, how did you put those you photographed at ease?
The process is quite long because I’ve never met most of the women in person before. They’ve all found me because you have to be ready for this type of project. It’s a really vulnerable thing.
I give them as much information about the project as possible. Before they come, I give them a document of expectations — not just a phone number and address and a time to show up. In it I include things they might want to think about before we make photographs:
What do you feel is different now about your cancer experience than it was when it first began? What stage are you in your cancer process? Are you still in treatment? Are you out of treatment? What type of language and what type of vocabulary feels fitting to you when you think about your cancer journey?
I give them a laundry list of questions that help spark those feelings toward our situation, and those are some really helpful starting points because it can be overwhelming when you think about your entire cancer journey.
When they come to the studio, we end up talking for probably a good hour before we make any photos because I have to get to know them and what they’re trying to share in order to help them be in front of the camera in a way they’re going to be proud of — and in a way they’re going to feel able to share their narrative. Because you can’t do wedding and engagement portraits or kids and family portraits. They’re beautiful, but those types of poses don’t really translate to these types of portraits.
We talk about our situations and about our lives and who we are and what we’re trying to share and the pain and the beauty and all of it, and then we make portraits. I let that take as long as it has to take until we both feel there’s one in there that feels good. I also show them the images the whole time to make sure they see what they look like and what’s going on.
Do you have a post-process you follow?
After the shoot, I upload everything onto my computer into Lightroom. I explain to them a little bit about Lightroom so they can see their whole filmstrip. And then I have them go through and rate ones, then we go back through and rate twos, then threes — until we find one that feels like it’s the most them.
After they choose the image, it goes onto my iPad. I don’t do any editing from there. It goes right onto my iPad into Procreate, which is an illustration tool. It’s a really simple program with only three things they’re going between: the different layers, the different colors, and the thickness of the pen. So I give them my Apple pen, and they just write.
They hang out here at my apartment, or we go sit on the porch, or we go to the park. They get a chance to really say what they’re trying to say with no other artist bias in there. They’re physically doing the writing, and I think that’s what’s so unique and beautiful about this. I’m not putting my words into it.
One of my greatest friends from back home in Boston — she’s a brilliant author and journalist — had a beautiful idea when I showed her this project and what I was doing on the iPad. Because the portraits are layered in Procreate — the black writing layer, which is all the medical jargon, the blue writing layer, which is more of the emotional side of it, and then the base layer, which is the image itself — she had the idea that if one of these women calls me in a year, in five years, in ten years, and says, “Hey, I need to write more. I have more thoughts,” we can go back in with another color and write more. It’s something that can continue. These portraits are kind of their first rendition.
What are you looking for in terms of framing your shots?
One of the questions we talk about when we’re getting ready to make the photos is what they want physically to show. Everyone’s cancer being different, we have different surgeries. Some of us have a lumpectomy, some of us have a mastectomy, some of us have double mastectomy, some of us have expanders in, some of us had radiation, some didn’t — there’s many different physical attributes to this that I have to take into account.
We have to move and we pose in a way where we’re showing exactly what she wants to show without too much. When I did my portrait, I was trying to physically show my radiation markers. Because of where my tumor was, the radiation came in from three different sides and burned a line through the middle of my armpit. I had my hand in that position so I could show the radiation marker going through.
There are different boundaries we each have, both physically and mentally, in the vulnerability we show. It takes a lot to know that it’s going to be public. It’s a puzzle for each of us.
These photos are so important, how do you keep them safe?
Like most photographers, I’ve had hard drives crash in the past. So it’s safe to say I’m paranoid about data storage. But committing to a consistent organizational method is key. I currently travel with portable 2TB SSDs, which I edit directly from. The raw and edited files are then backed up to a private, cloud-based Synology NAS set to RAID-5. This allows me to safely access my data from anywhere I can connect to the server. I also feel a sense of safety knowing that images loaded into my SmugMug library, including RAW files, are safe.
What did you learn from pursuing this project?
Where do I begin? This project has expanded me in every way. I’ve deepened my skills as a photographer by diving into studio portraiture. I’ve broken out of creativity jail by pursuing a personal project far outside what I’d ever imagined my wheelhouse to be. I’ve accessed emotions that not only was I unaware I was capable of, but I learned to be unafraid to express them. This project continues to challenge and humble me, and it has helped me rebuild from one of the most broken moments of my life.
What’s next for Under the Pencil?
Under the Pencil has so far been a very one-on-one personal project, and it will continue to be that, but I also want to make sure these stories are heard around the world — that the women who have participated feel heard and know that they’re appreciated.
So I’m going to be holding an event November 5, 2023, at a place called Bivouac Cidery in downtown San Diego, Ca., from 2pm to 5pm. It will be open to the public and have two parts.
The first part is like a photo gallery. The 15 women who have been photographed already will be printed in full life size, 24 x 36, on a core board displayed from the ceiling instead of from a wall perspective. That way when visitors come to see these prints, they have to interact with the art in a different way. And these beautiful prints are going to be gifted to the women who are a part of it.
The second part is more interactive. I’m going to have a private photo booth set up, a photo studio, and a printer. Whoever hasn’t been able to be a part of this project yet and would like to be, they can come to the studio, be photographed, have their portrait printed by my wonderful friend, Heather Crutt, who is a talented printer. She’s coming in to print on site so women can physically write on their prints there. I’ll have the markers there, and then we’ll digitize them, and they’ll get hung up with everybody else in the gallery.
I’ve also had women reach out from all over. I have a map in Google Maps overlaid with different pins where women have reached out from that can’t be here to be photographed. And the idea with the fundraising is not only to support the current production, but also to potentially bring in women who would like to participate from out of state.
I think that there’s a big world out there for this, and I’m ready to see it expand. I’m ready to see it make a difference in people’s lives, both people who are directly affected by cancers and people who are indirectly affected. It affects everyone on the planet. And it’s not going away. The likelihood of people being affected even tangentially by the disease is very high.
Anything I didn’t ask you’d really like me to know?
There are so many people involved with the Under the Pencil interactive art event that deserve thank yous. A special thank you to SmugMug, Bay Photo, and Pink Strength, for their sponsorships. Their contributions have affected countless hearts. Thank you to Kristian, my first breastie and the co-founding president of Pink Strength. Shoutout to Heather Krut and Sara Strick, two of my greatest friends and powerhouse creatives who’ve worked behind the scenes to support this event. And to the Adolescent and Young Adults breast cancer community, the women who’ve so vulnerably trusted me with your stories, I’m so proud of what we’ve done together.
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