A while back, I was commissioned by Bhava Communications, an award-winning technology public relations and marketing firm, for their company headshots. It took just 5 minutes by bike from Berkeley to their beautiful headquarters in Emeryville, California, where I shot portrait sessions with each person (such a sweet team!) and had plenty of gorgeous natural light to work with before joining them to document coverage of their company anniversary celebration that night.

Founder and CEO, Liz Z: “I love the photos Erica took and use them in all our pitch decks, on social media and for media opps.” Thanks, Liz! 

Photography for Girl Geek X. #notechforice

Thank you all for coming to the second Berkeley Women in Biz meetup* on Monday, February 17th! 

I created a Berkeley Women in Biz Meetup Facebook group where we can stay in touch. If you weren’t able to attend, and want to receive emails for future meetups, write me at kuishimbomedia@gmail.com. 

A big thank you to our co-hosts, Eileen Hanshaw and Ann Wees, the co-founders of Bloom, and Michelle Dean and Sophia Isabella at Barberella Beauty Lounge for providing a beautiful space for us to gather.

*We are open to all women, anyone who identifies as female or non-binary, lgbtq+, women of color, trans women, femme, and genderqueer. Allies and kids welcome. 

See more photos from the meetup>>

Join our Facebook group>>

A Galentine’s style mixer*

Come join the 2nd Berkeley Women in Biz meetup on February 17th at Barberella Beauty Lounge! 

Monday, February 17, 2020 from 3:00 - 5:30pm

Barberella Beauty Lounge

2442 San Pablo Ave, Berkeley, CA 94710

Bring your business cards, a light snack or chocolate, or bubbly to share. 

RSVP: erica@ericakhsu.com

Thank you to Ann Wees & Eileen Hanshaw at Bloom for co-hosting and Michelle Dean at Barberella for providing a beautiful space for us to gather.

Looking forward to seeing you!

(Image: Original black and white image of Copacabana girl in dressing room by Stanley Kubrick, 1948) 

See photos from the 2nd Berkeley Women in Biz meetup>>

Join our Facebook group>>

I documented coverage of the Bloomberg Engineering Girl Geek Dinner at their San Francisco office. They had pretty stingrays and the portobello dish was one of the yummiest I’ve had at a girl geek dinner. We heard Bloomberg Women in Technology co-founder Cheryl Quah and Rebecca Ely, software engineer and member of the BWIT Allyship Steering Committee discuss “Taking an ERG from idea to impact,” Alexandra (“Dobs”) Dobkin’s lightning talk on how to find your dream job, and a panel that software engineer Danica Fine moderated with engineering team lead Kaia Young, Stephanie Stattel, and Paul Ivanov on how to thrive in open source communities. 

See more photos, video, and transcript on Girl Geek X>>

Congrats to Janina Angel Bath, the Tarot Woman and founder of Empress Vintage, who just launched the Empress Studio & SF Showroom. Here are photographs from the Grand Opening launch party earlier today, including some of my favorite items on the racks. Read the full post on Kazoku>>

I documented coverage of the OpenAI girl geek dinner at their San Francisco office! We heard from software engineer Brooke Chan, research scientist Lilian Weng from the robotics team, research scientist Christine Payne who created MuseNet, research scientist Amanda Askell who covered AI policy, and hardware strategy lead Mira Murati. 

The dinner was super fun!  I made a new friend from Taipei, reconnected with a former fellow co-oper from Cloyne, loved Ben Barry’s design and artwork everywhere, and just really enjoyed hearing girl geeks share what they’re working on in #robotics and #AI, especially around ethics!

See more photos, read the transcript and watch the video on Girl Geek X>>

Photos from Girl Geek X: Clover Girl Geek Dinner are up>>

I documented coverage of Girl Geek X: LiveRamp Girl Geek Dinner on July 17th. Rachel Wolan, VP of Product at LiveRamp, gave an awesome lightning talk on privacy. View the full album on Girl Geek X’s Facebook page>>

I’m very excited to join the team at Girl Geek X (formerly Bay Area Girl Geek Dinners), an organization amplifying women in technology. Starting in July 2019, I’ll be documenting girl geek dinners hosted across the greater SF Bay Area, beginning with the LiveRamp girl geek dinner on July 17th. 

Follow @GirlGeekX on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Get your tickets for upcoming dinners on Eventbrite. 

Looking forward to Girl Geek events this summer/fall! 

Berkeley folk singer-songwriter, Green Huse

Green’s son, Liam, in redwood tree

Dogwood flowers in Green’s garden

Drawing by Green Huse

Green Huse on acoustic guitar

I documented Berkeley folk singer-songwriter, Green Huse, rehearsing this week. Green is performing a live show of unreleased tracks from her new upcoming album, Rise, on Saturday, June 15th at the Monkey House in Berkeley. Show starts 7:30pm. Special guests, Emily Shore, Maggie Forti, and Deb Lane will perform too. Green’s 7 year old son, Liam, will sing an acoustic cover of Vance Joy’s “Riptide.” 

To reserve your seats, email monkeyhouse.seats@gmail.com. 

We look forward to seeing you!

I’m hosting a meetup for women business owners at our house in Berkeley on Tuesday, June 4th from 6:30 - 8:30pm. 

Bring your business cards, a snack or dish, or bottle of wine to share. 

RSVP: erica@ericakhsu.com

We will be outdoors, so bring something warm to bundle up. 

Looking forward to seeing you!

*****Update*****

Thank you for attending the first Berkeley Women in Biz meetup on June 4th! 

View more photos and read the recap on my Kazoku blog>>

View photos from the second meetup>>

Join our Facebook group>>

Coaching Circle at The Treehouse Healing Arts Center

Coaching Circle at The Treehouse Healing Arts Center

Photography for The Treehouse Healing Arts Center

Photography for The Treehouse Healing Arts Center

Photography for The Treehouse Healing Arts Center

Photography for The Treehouse Healing Arts Center

Photography for The Treehouse Healing Arts Center

Photography for The Treehouse Healing Arts Center

Photography for The Treehouse Healing Arts Center

Photography for The Treehouse Healing Arts Center

Photography for The Treehouse Healing Arts Center

Photography for The Treehouse Healing Arts Center

Founded about 7 years ago by owner and craniosacral therapist SarahJoy Zell, The Treehouse Healing Arts Center is a healing arts center, business incubator, and community of about 20 women healing arts practitioners based in the heart of downtown Santa Cruz. On May 21st, the Treehouse launched a Coaching Circle, a 6-week series for healing arts practitioners to grow their practice. Here are images I documented of several practitioners to promote the launch and the center. 

CALPIRG Students, UC Berkeley chapter, hosted a National Voter Registration Day event to register students to vote at Lower Sproul at UC Berkeley on September 25th. Thank you to Headcount for registering us to vote and leading trainings to register voters. You can rally friends to vote with Vote Crew. Midterm elections are November 6th! Photography for Public Interest GRFX.

Photographs I shot of PATH Executive Director Amy Anderson at a construction site for new permanent supportive housing in L.A. are featured in Kresge Foundation’s 2017 Annual Report, the video Perspectives, and in the story, Social Investment Practice: Homeless in L.A. Photography for Kresge Foundation. 

Download the annual report here>>

Yesterday, I headed out on the BART to Millbrae, then biked down to Proterra Inc. in Burlingame, where Kent Leacock from Proterra led a tour through the zero-emissions electric bus factory. No photos were allowed on the tour, but here are some highlights from the presentations by Alana Miller and Andrea McGimsey from Environment America before and the test ride on the electric bus after. Photography for Public Interest GRFX.

Here are several highlights from the Endorsement Interview Day event I documented for GO Public Schools West Contra Costa Advocates in their Community Room in Richmond, East Bay. A diverse bilingual group of members in the community, including youth, parents, educators, and leaders, gathered on Saturday to interview candidates running for their local School Board ahead of elections.

Follow GO Public Schools West Contra Costa Advocates on Facebook here. 

Here are some highlights from Westridge School for Girls’ Alumnae Weekend 2018, including American bobsledder and Olympic Silver Medalist Lauren Gibbs ‘02 (with her mom Akila Gibbs), who shared a keynote about her recent experience at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, alumnae class shots, and Julie Frantz who received the 2018 Mary Lowther Ranney Distinguished Alumna Award.

In February, The Kresge Foundation’s Education Program gathered their partners with Los Angeles-based work and Southern California-based grantees to map out the Los Angeles urban higher education ecosystem at their convening at the California Endowment.

A few portraits of DWC women shot for Downtown Women’s Center.

Here are a few highlights from Bhava and PRSA SF’s Meet the Press: Diversity, Inclusion, and Women in Tech panel event last week! See more photos on tech/candid here. 

In the spring and summer of 2011, I interviewed a number of my peers in the Bay Area and Los Angeles who are passionate about a variety of diverse fields, such as food, art, startups, and social justice, and are going for it.  Inspired recently to revisit fly project TV, I’m creating multimedia stories using photography, podcasts, and video from the original footage.

The first story features Haleh Zandi, co-founder of Oakland-based grassroots organization, Planting Justice. The second story, which includes the video above, features Malila Becton, a nutrition educator for kids in Alameda County. Another features Abel Habtegeorgis sharing what it’s like to grow up as ”First-Generation American Kids.” The most recent story features Alta Tseng, a designer based in New York, who speaks about the importance of cultural role models and shares an early memory seeing the Asian Fly Girl on “In Living Color.”

Here are a few more of my peers that I interviewed, including Abel, who ran media communications for Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Rafa a trumpet player, Dominic a visual artist aka DJ Treat-U-Nice, Alta a designer, Steven a musician and writer, Aida a community leader, and Erin a criminal defense and civil rights lawyer. 

To read and listen to fly project stories, visit our multimedia page and follow on Twitter @flyprojectTV. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more stories.

The women and activities I documented for Downtown Women’s Center are now featured in their 2016 Annual Report. Downtown Women’s Center provides permanent supportive housing, creative job training and placement, health & wellness programs and many other services to homeless women in Los Angeles’ Skid Row community. Download the full report here>>

“I have my own key and my own door. For the first time in years, I have privacy, and I feel safe. Now that I have that, I want to make sure other people have it, too.” – Francine Andrade 

I recently photographed new portraits for Laurika Harris-Kaye, Director of Operations at Oakland-based impact investment advisor, Candide Group. 

I had the joy of documenting the women and many activities at the Downtown Women’s Center again this year. I took portraits and candids primarily in their Day Center, where volunteers served hot meals to the women, and inside the women’s apartments. Founded in 1978, the Downtown Women’s Center is dedicated to addressing the needs of women overcoming poverty and homelessness in Los Angeles’ Skid Row neighborhood with permanent supportive housing, job training, their creative social enterprise MADE by DWC, and many other programs.