Erik Castro
Erik Castro
Photojournalist
Erik Castro is an award winning photojournalist who began his career focusing on homeless issues and those struggling with drug and alcohol addictions in Seattle during the late 1990s. Castro has won multiple National Press Photographers Association Awards for his multimedia work, wildfire coverage and more recently for his year-long homeless project, BROKEN. Castro is based in Santa Rosa, California where he continues to work on his long term immigrant labor project, HARVESTER.
Why am I Involved?
I was still living in Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots and on this recent May 30th I had strong feelings that similar scenes of violence would break out in large cities across America after the graphic video of George Floyd’s killing went viral. But what compelled me to begin documenting this moment was the visceral reaction that occurred in a small town like Santa Rosa. Immediately after arriving downtown I witnessed a young man drive his truck aggressively through a crowd of protesters and then I photographed him being attacked by the same protesters in retaliation for his behavior. I captured determined young faces kneeling before police in riot gear holding the final words of Mr. Floyd. But it was later that evening when I clearly felt the historical significance of what I was capturing. In a tear-gassed filled street corner I photographed a young girl bleeding from her head after she was hit by a police officer’s less-lethal round. As a medic on the scene bandaged her wound while blood streamed down her face like tears, I felt at that moment that Santa Rosa had become a different town. This wine country tourist destination had changed overnight, just like the rest of the nation.
As for my images of those first few weeks of living under the new COVID-19 restrictions, my concerns were less about myself and more about the possibility of unintentionally harming my own family by contracting the virus while working. That thought never left my mind. This invisible virus, like an imagined monster under a child’s bed, made me feel more vulnerable than I have ever felt on any previous assignment.
