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Susan Meiselas

 

Susan Meiselas: The Witness Who Stays

Introduction

Susan Meiselas (b. 1948, Baltimore) is one of the most significant and morally rigorous documentary photographers of the last half-century. A member of Magnum Photos since 1976 — and President of the Magnum Foundation since its founding in 2007 — she first came to prominence with Carnival Strippers (1976), a groundbreaking multi-year project photographing women performing in travelling strip shows across New England. That work established the hallmarks that would define her entire career: long-term immersion, ethical commitment to her subjects, and a documentary practice that goes far beyond the single image.

She is best known internationally for her coverage of the Sandinista insurrection in Nicaragua (1978–1979), producing some of the most iconic images in the history of conflict photography — most notably Molotov Man (1979), named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential photographs of all time. From there she extended her work across Central America, Iraqi Kurdistan, New York's underground S&M culture, and the indigenous Dani people of Papua. Throughout, Meiselas has interrogated not just what photography shows, but what it means for images to circulate — and who controls that meaning.

Her awards are a who's who of photography's highest honours: the Robert Capa Gold Medal (1979), the Leica Award for Excellence (1982), the Hasselblad Foundation Photography Prize (1994), a MacArthur Fellowship (1992), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2015), the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize (2019), and the Outstanding Contribution to Photography award at the Sony World Photography Awards (2025).

Camera Gear Used by Susan Meiselas

Note: all gear listed below is confirmed through interviews and direct statements by Meiselas herself. She has been deliberately sparse when discussing equipment, famously answering "It's not what lens you use, it's what lens you think you are." Only gear for which there is positive evidence is included here.

Cameras

  • Leica M4 – Meiselas's camera for her early career. She used the M4 throughout her Carnival Strippers project (1972–1975) and into the Nicaragua years. She has confirmed that the Leica's compact, unobtrusive size was a deliberate choice — essential for building the intimate access she needed with subjects who were wary of cameras. In her own words: "The Leica was perfect for Carnival Strippers." It was paired with a Summicron-M 35mm f/2 lens.
  • Hasselblad / Rolleiflex – Meiselas has confirmed using both medium format systems for projects where the square format was appropriate, particularly for portraiture work. She noted: "Between a Hasselblad and Rollei, there might not have been a significant difference, because they were both square, good for portraiture, where for reportage, a 35 felt right."
  • Panoramic camera – For her Crossings series on undocumented border migration, she shot with a wide-lens panoramic camera. She described the experience: "With a panoramic camera, when you move, it moves, so you get a very different relationship to a subject in motion. It was perfect for a particular process and project."
  • Canon EOS 5D Mark III – Her confirmed digital camera. Canon's own platform documented her setup in detail: she photographs with the 5D Mark III as her primary digital body, and has described Canon as her go-to digital system. As she put it: "Digitally, I have tended to work with one camera — the Canon."

Lenses (Digital Era)

  • Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L II USM – Her primary lens on the Canon EOS 5D Mark III, confirmed by Canon's own documentation of her setup. Consistent with her preference for wide primes that keep her close to subjects without being physically imposing.
  • Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS II USM – Her secondary lens, confirmed alongside the 35mm in Canon's published profile. Used for situations requiring more flexibility in framing.
  • Summicron-M 35mm f/2 – Her primary film lens in her Leica years, consistent with her stated preference for a focal length "somewhere between a 28mm and a 35mm."

Film

  • Kodachrome (colour slide film) – The Nicaragua work, which made Meiselas famous, was shot in colour — specifically on Kodachrome, which produced the vivid, saturated palette that made those images so viscerally intense. The choice to shoot colour reportage in a war zone was itself significant; most photojournalists of the era worked in black and white.

Technique & Style

Susan Meiselas's photography is rooted in what she calls the documentary tradition, but her practice is far more complex than the term usually implies. Where many photojournalists parachute into a story and leave, Meiselas immerses herself — often for months or years — building genuine relationships with her subjects before she even raises the camera. Her Carnival Strippers project unfolded across three full summers. Her Nicaragua work began not as war coverage but as open-ended social observation, evolving into revolution documentation as history unfolded around her.

Her compositional approach is direct and close. Her confirmed preference for wide primes in the 28–35mm range — whether on Leica film or Canon digital — places her physically near her subjects, creating a sense of presence and complicity rather than detached observation. Her colour work in Nicaragua avoided the aesthetic distancing that black-and-white sometimes provides, confronting viewers with an immediacy that was deliberately uncomfortable.

Meiselas has always been interested in context over the moment. She has returned repeatedly to places she photographed decades earlier, tracking down individuals from famous images, exploring what happened after the shutter clicked. This refusal to treat the photograph as a completed act is central to understanding her work. She is equally occupied with what images do in the world — how they circulate, how they are reframed, who controls their meaning — as she is with making them.

She typically works with one camera and one lens. As she has said: "I often use one camera, sometimes one lens, and keep it as simple as it can be. It's how you present yourself and your engagement with your subject that is the most essential."

How to Imitate Her Style in Post Production

To work with Meiselas's signature look, Pixlr is an excellent and cost-effective option — powerful enough for professional results, accessible enough for photographers at every level, and available entirely in the browser without a heavy software install. Here's how to channel Meiselas's distinctive visual sensibility:

  1. Saturated but grounded colour: Meiselas's Nicaragua work used Kodachrome's rich colour palette — warm reds, deep greens, strong contrast. In Pixlr, use the HSL tool to push reds and yellows slightly, while keeping blues and purples restrained. Avoid the cool, desaturated look of modern digital photography.
  2. Expose for the midtones: Her images tend to hold detail across a wide tonal range without blowing highlights or crushing shadows. Use the Curves tool in Pixlr to create a gentle S-curve — boosting midtone contrast without losing information at either end.
  3. Add a subtle film grain: Kodachrome had a fine, organic grain structure. Pixlr's noise/grain filter set to a low value adds that analogue texture without turning the image grungy.
  4. Avoid over-cropping: Meiselas composes deliberately in-camera, using the full frame. Resist the temptation to heavily crop in post — if the edges feel too open, use Pixlr's vignette tool with a very gentle fade to draw the eye inward without distorting the original framing.
  5. Context before drama: If you're editing a series, use Pixlr's batch export and consistent colour preset to create visual coherence across images. Meiselas's work is always meant to be read as a body — individual frames gain their full meaning from the sequence around them.

How to Shoot Like Susan Meiselas

  • Stay longer than feels comfortable. Meiselas spent six weeks in Nicaragua before the conflict she would document had even fully ignited. The willingness to simply be present — without a clear story defined in advance — is what allowed her to capture history in the making. Don't rush your projects.
  • Let the project define its own format. She used a Leica for intimate portraiture, a panoramic camera for border crossings, a Hasselblad for squarer compositional work. The gear followed the conceptual need. Ask yourself what the project requires visually before defaulting to what you already own.
  • Shoot in colour when it matters. At a time when serious documentary photographers worked in black and white, Meiselas chose Kodachrome in a war zone. Colour made the Nicaragua images harder to aestheticize — more immediate, more politically confrontational. Consider whether colour serves your subject more honestly than monochrome.
  • Work close, with a wide prime. Her preference for the 28–35mm range keeps the photographer in the scene, not observing from a safe distance. The slight distortion at close range actually heightens the sense of urgency and intimacy in her best work.
  • Return to your work. Some of Meiselas's most significant later projects involved going back — to Nicaragua, to communities she had photographed — and asking what happened next. The photograph is not the end of the relationship.
  • Use the camera as a reason to be there — not as a barrier. "The camera is an excuse to be someplace you otherwise don't belong," she has said. The camera gives you access; what you do with that access, and how you treat the people you photograph, is what defines the work.
  • Think about where images go. Meiselas has spent decades thinking about image circulation, copyright, and the rights of subjects. Before you publish or share work of vulnerable communities, ask who benefits, who might be harmed, and whether you've been true to the relationship that made the image possible.

Legacy

Susan Meiselas stands as one of the defining figures of concerned photography — the tradition that holds that documentary images carry a moral responsibility to their subjects and their viewers. Her Nicaragua work didn't just capture a revolution; it shaped how the world saw it. Her Kurdistan project — a six-year effort to curate a hundred-year photographic history of a people — stands as one of the most ambitious acts of visual preservation in the history of the medium. And her ongoing interrogation of what photographs mean, who owns them, and what obligations they create has made her one of the most important thinkers in photography as well as one of its finest practitioners.

As President of the Magnum Foundation, she has worked to expand diversity and access in documentary photography, ensuring that the tradition she has enriched continues to evolve. Still exhibiting and working in her seventies — most recently honoured with the Sony World Photography Awards Outstanding Contribution to Photography prize in 2025 — Meiselas remains a vital and restless presence in the field.

Books Featuring Susan Meiselas's Work

  • Carnival Strippers (1976, reprinted Steidl) – Her debut and still one of her most celebrated works. A multi-year immersive project on the women of New England travelling shows, accompanied by audio interviews with the subjects.
  • Nicaragua, June 1978–July 1979 (1981, reprinted Aperture 2008 and 2025) – The book that made her internationally known. A contemporary classic of photojournalism, now in its third edition with QR-linked film excerpts.
  • Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History (1997) – A monumental curatorial project: a hundred-year photographic history of Kurdistan, integrating Meiselas's own work with archival images gathered from around the world.
  • Pandora's Box (2001) – A documentary project exploring a New York S&M club, exhibited internationally.
  • In History (2008) – The catalogue accompanying her ICP retrospective, surveying four decades of work.
  • Mediations (2018) – A retrospective exhibition catalogue covering her career from the 1970s to the present, published in conjunction with the Jeu de Paume, Paris.

Conclusion

Susan Meiselas does not photograph from the outside looking in. She enters, she stays, she returns. Whether working with a compact Leica M4 in a New England fairground, a Kodachrome-loaded camera in a Nicaraguan firefight, or a Canon EOS 5D Mark III with a 35mm prime in contemporary conflict zones, her approach has always been the same: get close, stay long, and honour the relationship that makes the image possible. In an era where photography is faster and more disposable than ever, her practice — patient, ethical, deeply contextual — is more relevant, not less.

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