The World Photography Organization announced that American photographer Susan Meiselas has been named the recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to Photography at the 2025 Sony World Photography Awards. Meiselas is known for her deeply engaged approach and has built an impressive body of work. Her compelling portraits of people in their communities broaden perspectives on documentary photography.
Meiselas is known for portraying women’s stories: from girls growing up in Little Italy, New York, and strippers performing at state fairs to women escaping domestic violence in the UK. She has also documented human rights issues in Latin America and compiled a photographic history of Kurdistan.
Her photographic essays share the lives and experiences of the people in front of her lens. Created over extended periods—often accompanied by field notes and testimony from participants—Meiselas’s projects invite collaboration.
Excerpts from five of Meiselas’s projects were on display at Somerset House in London from April 17 through May 5, 2025, including projects never before exhibited in the United Kingdom.
Drawing on her earliest works, 44 Irving Street, Prince Street Girls, and Carnival Strippers, through to her later projects Pandora’s Box and A Room of Their Own, the exhibition traced recurring themes that Meiselas has developed in her practice, focusing on what is often hidden from public view.
Susan Meiselas was born in Baltimore, United States, in 1948 and completed her MA in visual education at Harvard University before working as a teacher.
She began taking photographs during summer vacations and created her first project Carnival Strippers during the summers of 1972-75. She joined Magnum Photos in 1976 and went on to produce several major bodies of work. Her photographs of the revolution in Nicaragua in the late ’70s remain iconic decades later.
The Outstanding Contribution to Photography honors an individual or group that has made a significant impact on the medium of photography.
As the 18th recipient, Meiselas joins a distinguished list of names including William Eggleston (2013), Mary Ellen Mark, William Klein, Eve Arnold, Bruce Davidson, Elliott Erwitt and, most recently, Martin Parr, Candida Höfer, Nadav Kander, Gerhard Steidl, Graciela Iturbide, Edward Burtynsky (2022), and Sebastião Salgado (2024).
More information: www.worldphoto.org.
