Danny was born on March 16, 1942 in Brooklyn, New York. Danny was raised in the Queens of New York during the 1942, he was shaped to be an artist by the prose of Beat Generation writers. His mother Rebecca Henkin was a Russian- Jewish and His father Dr. Ernst Fredrick Lyon was a German- Jewish he was also an immigrant. Danny was an American photographer and filmmaker. Danny was inspired by the photographer Walker Evans and the writer James Agee. Walker Evans was a famous photographer by documenting the Great Depression and James Agee Helped Walker Evans great his photo graph and Agee wrote what went with what Walker Evans took during the Great Depression. Danny attended the University of Chicago and there he studied history and philosophy. He then graduated in the year of 1963, and got a Bachelor Of Arts degree.

Lyon's soon published his first photo's in the year of 1963. The pictures Danny took were soon on a documentary book called, The Movement which was based on the Civil Rights Movement in the south region of the United States. He served for a non-photographer on a committee. He taught himself to be a photographer and started to ride with the motorcycle club called, The Chicago Outlaws in 1965- 1966 and published his photographs in 1968. He made films during 1969, and in 1967 he was an independent photographer and got associated with Magnum. Danny received fellowships from Guggenheim because of his filming and photography. His work got into a lot of big exhibits, such as Tower a Social Landscape located in Georgia Eastman House. He never became a full member of the bike club.

Danny Lyon is a founding member of the group Bleak Beauty. He also created a non- fiction book called , Like a Thief's Dream.