Danny Lyon is a self-taught photographer and filmmaker. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Lyon is of Jewish (German & Russian) heritage and primarily works in the USA. He pursued his BA in History at the University of Chicago in 1963, where he also worked as a staff photographer for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The SNCC was birthed in the early 1960’s and was made up of Black college students across America, who practiced peaceful protests against institutional segregation and that in local communities. In the original 1962 photograph, Lyons captured future SNCC chairman and United States congressman John Lewis, along with fellow demonstrators kneeling in protest at a swimming pool that disallowed black people in Cairo, Illinois; a moment where both photographer and subject are in similar stances; “I was kneeling to take the picture.”

This was incremental to his career as a photographer as he spent much of his life recording historical events related to the civil rights movement and the political atmosphere within the United States in the late 1900’s. Today, Lyon is an associate at Magnum and has received numerous accolades from the likes of the Guggenheim, the Rockerfeller Foundation, and The International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum.