Erika Larsen

Between 1994 and 1999, Larsen received a B.F.A and M.F.A. from the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, focusing on film making and animation. However, photography was her passion and after being accepted to the Eddie Adams Workshop, she began working professionally as a magazine photographer in 2000, specializing in human-interest stories. Larsen's interest in photography began when her father, a designer for the Hubble Space Telescope, would bring home Kodak images of planets and their moons.

Larsen's most famous work is her documentation of the Arctic Circle's Sami people, which appeared in the 2011 issue of National Geographic. She lived and worked with the Sami reindeer herders of Scandinavia for over four years, immersing herself in the culture, working as a housekeeper and studying the Sami language at a local university before shooting a single image. Her studies of the Northern Sami language were supported by a Fulbright fellowship. Larsen’s first book, Sámi, Walking With Reindeer, is a look into her experience living with the Sami.

Other prominent work for National Geographic includes documenting Native American connection to horses, the Science of Belief, Yellowstone, and the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. A long-term project called People of the Horse, follows the horse in Native American culture to learn about its significance culturally, spiritually, and economically.

She is one of 11 women featured in National Geographic's ongoing traveling exhibition, Women of Vision. The exhibit showcases a diversity of photos from the magazine's most accomplished women photojournalists.

• 2008: Fulbright Fellowship
• New Jersey State Arts Council Fellowship
• Women in Photography Individual Project Grant
• 2010: Swedish Project Support, Lois Roth Endowment
• 2008: World Press Award

• National Portrait Gallery
• The Swedish Museum of Ethnography
• Ájtte Sami Museum