She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1970, and in 1974 she began her career as an apprentice to Berenice Abbott.
[1] Davis' first exhibition hung at the International Center of Photography (New York City) in 1979,[2] alongside her close friend Robert Mapplethorpe.
[3] After her first trip to Greenland, in 1986, she gave up photographing the human form, shifting her lens toward the monumental landscapes and cultural/architectural icons for which she is renowned.
Davis lives in Hudson, New York with her husband, writer Rudy Wurlitzer.
In 1999, the J. Paul Getty Museum held an exhibition of Davis' prints, and a solo show, Africa, was held at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson in 1999.