Turner Browne was born on July 6, 1949, in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
The same year a documentary film called The New Klan was released in which he was the lead cinematographer.
In 2000 Browne donated his Louisiana Cajun collection to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
He co-authored The Macmillan Dictionary of Photographic Artists and Innovators with his wife, author Elaine Bernstein Partnow; it was published in 1983.
A monograph of his documentary work on the White River of Arkansas, The Last River, was published in 1993; the book inspired director Jeff Nichols in his making of the film Mud.