Tomas Muscionico was born in 1967 near Zurich, Switzerland and for the last twenty years has covered major political events and conflicts around the globe: the fall of Berlin Wall, the Gulf War, turmoil in Haiti, Bosnia, Chechnya, Rwanda, and the Occupied Territories. Since joining Contact Press Images in 1989, he has also documented the rise of numerous world leaders: Nelson Mandela (1995), Bill Clinton (1992), and Vaclav Havel (1990), for which he received a first prize from the World Press Photo Foundation. More recently he has worked almost exclusively in the USA, concentrating on American "underworlds." He is based in Las Vegas.