Student Union

Susannah Kay
Analy High School
Sebastopol, California

Balance
It was a teacher’s initiative that propelled Susannah’s photography. Two years ago, as a sophomore, she took a basic photo course. “My teacher [Sally Briggs] was submitting my work to competitions,” Susannah says. “One day I got a call that I’d won this huge award in a competition I had no idea I was even entered in.”

Now a senior, Susannah is applying to colleges with strong photojournalism courses. She is dedicated to both documentary and wildlife photography, with the former accounting for an ongoing project photographing street people in San Francisco and Berkeley, and the latter a photo safari in Kenya last summer, which resulted in the images you see here.

The safari also resulted in tipping the balance of her interests. “Photographing wildlife was a dream, and the safari made that come true,” she says, “but I realized that photojournalism—photographing people and telling their stories—is what I really want to do.”

All Photos © 2009, Susannah Kay, All Rights Reserved

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