Born in Chicago in 1933, Bruce Davidson began photographing at the age of ten 
in Oak Park, Illinois. Davidson studied at the Rochester Institute of Technology and Yale University before being drafted into the army. After leaving military service in 1957, he freelanced for Life and in 1958 became a member of Magnum Photos. Davidson's solo exhibitions include those at the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Walker Art Center, and
 his awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship and the first National Endowment for the Arts Grant in Photography. In 2011 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts from the Corcoran College of Art and Design. Davidson's books at Steidl include Outside Inside (2010), Subway (2011), Black & White (2012) and England / Scotland 1960 (2014).