Meet Second Wave's new photographer: Susan Andress

For four years Second Wave has benefited from the photography skills of Erik Holladay. With memorable mastheads, feature pictures and photo stories, Erik helped Second Wave grow as it was establishing itself in Southwest Michigan. More than one person said, "Second Wave, you're the one with the pictures."

So it is with reluctance we say goodbye to Erik, but wish him well as he grows other aspects of his photography business.

At the same time, it is with delight that we welcome Susan Andress as our new Managing Photographer.

Susan tells us she grew up in Niles  and moved to Kalamazoo to attend Western Michigan Universtiy.  She studied art at WMU and earned a B.A. degree there. She continues to live in Kalamazoo.

She started her career as part of the photography department at The Upjohn Co. During her tenure there, she developed skills in photography, video, and sound editing. She traveled throughout the United States to assist in on-location still photography and video projects.

Her interest in computer graphics and design led her to her next job where she created presentation graphics and speaker support materials for company board meetings, annual meetings and sales conferences. For two years, she served as artist for a televised, in-house corporate news program.

In her freelance career, her interest in animation and interactive media led to her participation as interface designer and animator for an award winning interactive CD-ROM that explained the function of steam traps for Armstrong International.

She developed graphics for the visitor’s center in Fort Collins, Colo  and for the Michigan Supreme Court Museum in Lansing.

In her artistic career, she has worked in several mediums including watercolor, pastels and oils but has always had a strong interest in photography.

Her original photographs, digital collages, and paintings have appeared for many years in Southwest Michigan art exhibitions.

Starting in 2002, she has concentrated on artwork constructed from multiple photographic and scanned images with added painterly effects to achieve her final images.  Susan has exhibited her original digital collages at one-person venues as part of the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo's monthly Art Hop six times.

Susan’s work has been included at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts in the West Michigan Area Show in Kalamazoo. She won the Pfizer Purchase Prize for her photograph Sundial.

Her work has appeared in the Michigan Artists Competition at the Battle Creek Museum of Art, and in the Juried Regional Fine Arts Competition at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Three Rivers, where she won first place in photography in 2007 for her photographic collage  Faded Blooms.

Besides her freelance photography and design work, Susan currently teaches Photoshop Elements at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts.

Whether in the corporate world or through her freelance work, Susan branches out to learn new skills.

Susan has been at Second Wave for a few weeks now and we are very excited to see her work each week.