David Hurn

A diaristic compendium of Hurn’s digital missives, spanning his momentous 60-year career

Magnum’s David Hurn (born 1934) is one of Britain’s most influential documentary photographers, noted for his portrayal of ordinary people in their everyday lives. In 2016, Hurn started an Instagram account to share photography tidbits: technical tips, book recommendations, exhibitions and work that he found interesting. His engagement with the app has become progressively intimate, as evinced in his reflections on photographs from his 60-year career and his own mortality. On his feed, scrollers can find photographs from the Hungarian revolution in 1956, the set of the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night in 1964, trips to Arizona in the 1970s and ’90s as well as Halloween celebrations in his local Welsh village during the pandemic.

This compendium collates these individual posts from the past seven years, underscoring Hurn’s generosity as a teacher and his willingness to authentically share his course as a photographer.