David Hurn began photographing in 1958. He was editorial adviser for the photography magazine Album and a member of the photographic committee and the arts panel of the Arts Council of Great Britain between 1972 and 1977. He became head of the School for Documentary Photography and Film at Gwent College of Higher Education in Wales, where he settled in 1971. He taught at Arizona State University between 1979 and 1980 and in 1987 received the Imperial War Museum Artistic Records Award.