Susan Meiselas is a contemporary American photographer known for her documentation of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua and her photobook Carnival Strippers (1976). “The camera is an excuse to be someplace you otherwise don't belong. It gives me both a point of connection and a point of separation,” she has said. Born on June 21, 1948 in Baltimore, MD, she received her BA from Sarah Lawrence and an MA from Harvard University. After finishing her education, Meiselas worked as a teacher in New York and set up photography workshops for rural schools in the American South. The artist went on to travel to Nicaragua and later El Salvador during the height of their respective civil wars. In the following decades, she has continued to involve herself in diverse communities and conflicts around the world.