Daniel W. Coburn was born in San Bernardino, California in 1976. His work and research investigates the family photo album as one component of a visual infrastructure that supports the flawed ideology of the American Dream.

Coburn's friends and family members confront his camera to construct a potent amendment to the idealized family album. Daniel's projects illuminate important issues that are often suppressed in traditional family albums. In doing so, he intends to expand the perimeter of visual information considered for inclusion in new iterations of the family album.

Coburn's prints are held in collections at major institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College, The Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, and the University of New Mexico Art Museum.  His photographs have been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Mulvane Art Museum, Silver Eye Center for Photography, Filter Photo Space and La Fototeca Gallery. Photographs from Daniel's comprehensive body of work have appeared in numerous international group exhibitions including Álbum de Família at Centro Municipal de Arte Hélio Oiticica, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His first monograph, The Hereditary Estate, was published by Kehrer Verlag in 2015. 

Daniel Coburn is a recipient of a 2017 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship.  He was named as a finalist for the Arnold Newman Prize for New Directions in Photographic Portraiture the same year.

Coburn received his MFA with distinction from the University of New Mexico in 2013. He served as Assistant Professor of Photography at the University of Kansas for five years. Daniel currently works as an independent educator and educational consultant. He has taught at the Sydney College of Art, and currently teaches professional workshops at Maine Media College, and The Los Angeles Center For Photography.