Node error: throw errnoException(err, 'spawn');

Running ‘gulp watch’ works fine.

However, when I run ‘gulp --production’ I get this dump:

child_process.js:1162
    throw errnoException(err, 'spawn');
          ^
Error: spawn EACCES
    at exports._errnoException (util.js:746:11)
    at ChildProcess.spawn (child_process.js:1162:11)
    at exports.spawn (child_process.js:995:9)
    at Through2._transform (/var/www/devserver/wp-content/themes/beautiful-solutions/node_modules/gulp-imagemin/node_modules/imagemin/node_modules/imagemin-jpegtran/index.js:40:12)
    at Through2.Transform._read (/var/www/devserver/wp-content/themes/beautiful-solutions/node_modules/gulp-imagemin/node_modules/imagemin/node_modules/imagemin-jpegtran/node_modules/through2/node_modules/readable-stream/lib/_stream_transform.js:172:10)
    at Through2.Transform._write (/var/www/devserver/wp-content/themes/beautiful-solutions/node_modules/gulp-imagemin/node_modules/imagemin/node_modules/imagemin-jpegtran/node_modules/through2/node_modules/readable-stream/lib/_stream_transform.js:160:12)
    at doWrite (/var/www/devserver/wp-content/themes/beautiful-solutions/node_modules/gulp-imagemin/node_modules/imagemin/node_modules/imagemin-jpegtran/node_modules/through2/node_modules/readable-stream/lib/_stream_writable.js:326:12)
    at writeOrBuffer (/var/www/devserver/wp-content/themes/beautiful-solutions/node_modules/gulp-imagemin/node_modules/imagemin/node_modules/imagemin-jpegtran/node_modules/through2/node_modules/readable-stream/lib/_stream_writable.js:312:5)
    at Through2.Writable.write (/var/www/devserver/wp-content/themes/beautiful-solutions/node_modules/gulp-imagemin/node_modules/imagemin/node_modules/imagemin-jpegtran/node_modules/through2/node_modules/readable-stream/lib/_stream_writable.js:239:11)
    at write (/var/www/devserver/wp-content/themes/beautiful-solutions/node_modules/gulp-imagemin/node_modules/imagemin/node_modules/through2/node_modules/readable-stream/lib/_stream_readable.js:623:24)

All I can figure out from it is that gulp-imagemin is erroring out. But I can’t tell anything much about the nature of the error from the dump.

The production run does return without errors if I remove the directory ‘images’ from my theme root.
Right now this isn’t an issue, because I’m not loading any unique images for the theme. But eventually I expect to be adding images.

What could be going on, and how can I eliminate this error?