David Campbell is an educator, writer and researcher who studies how photographs are made, published and understood. Since 2021 he has worked with The VII Foundation, where he is Director of Education and edits the foundation’s online magazine, Dispatches.
He began his career as a press secretary and speechwriter to an Australian senator, then completed a PhD in International Relations. For the twenty years before 2010 he taught visual culture, geography and international politics at universities in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. From 2015 to 2020 he worked in senior management at the World Press Photo Foundation in Amsterdam, and he served as Secretary to the World Press Photo General Jury for the 2014 and 2015 contests. He has also been an Honorary Professor in the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland.
In our 2026 interview he spoke about why no photograph changes the world on its own. “Trust comes from transparency,” he said.
