My day as official Parkrun photographer

On imitating Robbie Lawrence and vibes-based photography

Six months ago, my friend Alfie asked me if I had heard of a Scottish photographer called Robbie Lawrence. Alfie had struck up a conversation with him at an event in Cornwall. Alas, when Alfie tried to continue the conversation online, he got no response.

This was hardly surprising given that Lawrence has 176,000+ followers on Instagram. Social connections don't scale. Anyone moderately famous will find it impossible to maintain contact with all the people who have a claim on them.¹

Anyway, I said I hadn't heard of Robbie Lawrence but promised to look him up. What I found was a revelation.

A screengrab of Robbie Lawrence’s Instagram page.

Lawrence’s photography is totally vibes-based. This is not a simple attempt to represent objective reality as cameras are programmed to see the world. It is full of movement, blur, and emotion. Maybe even sound. Can you hear the crowd in this image?

From Robbie Lawrence’s TIME magazine Olympic commission

The photographs are well-composed and timeless. A more orthodox photographer might say they are underexposed, too dark, too tightly-cropped, too grainy. Still, when everyone can achieve high resolution through a smartphone, it is natural to want to capture something else, something more. The ethereal mystery of the moment.

From Robbie Lawrence’s TIME magazine Olympic commission

There is dignity and heroism in his photographs of athletes. No wonder that Adidas commissioned him for their Olympic campaign.

From Adidas’s Olympic campaign

I am no Olympian and, last week, damaged my knee through overexertion. It meant I couldn’t do my Saturday ritual of Parkrun. Thankfully, Parkrun is organized by volunteers, meaning that you can participate even if you're injured. I had always wanted to try my hand as the official photographer. What better opportunity to try and understand Robbie Lawrence's work at the Olympics?

All humans learn through imitation. We have mirror neurons and mimetic desire, it is all imitation. Notably, the first two items of Martin Parr's list of rules for emerging photographers are “Look and learn from other photographers” and “Identify what makes you like their images.”²

What follows is my attempt at capturing Pollok Parkrun in the spirit of Robbie Lawrence. though I haven’t slavishly post-processed them to try and look like his photographs. Instead, I’ve focused on vibes.³

1. Dunbar's Number is an idea from anthropology that suggests human beings are capable of sustaining around 150 stable social relationships. Online, it is easy to connect with far more people than that. I do, for instance, and have been struggling to keep on top of my inbox. Something has to give: your sanity or your social life.

One of the greatest skills in modern life is to be able to be professionally charming for short periods. To make someone feel special in the space of thirty seconds. That was certainly how I felt after meeting the delightful Merve Emre.

2. Martin Parr recently came up with a list of ten rules for emerging photographers for WeTransfer. Here is the full list.

1. Look and learn from other photographers

2. Identify what makes you like their images

3. Find a subject you feel strongly about

4. Select the images you like and understand why they are interesting

5. Do more like that

6. Keep shooting more images

7. Acknowledge you will mainly take failures

8. Get excited by what you have discovered

9. Don't wish you could be a famous photographer

10. If you do, you will fail—wrong priorities

3. Some other photographers on Substack who do this well include

Dina Litovsky

(particularly here) and

Augusta Sagnelli

(especially here).