Parklife By Bob Thomas

Born in England in 1958, Bob Thomas began his career after leaving school aged 17. He gradually built up the Bob Thomas Sports Photography agency alongside photographers David Rogers and John Evans. By 1980 they were travelling 200,000 miles a year shooting some 20 sports. In 1984 Thomas was voted Sports Photographer of the Year and his image portfolio is now represented by

The cover of Blur’s seminal 1994 LP is rather an anomaly among album covers in that it relies on a ‘found image’ – a greyhound racing image by sports photographer Bob Thomas – rather than a photo shot specifically for the album. The approach of using a foundfeatured a crop of a photo by Charles Hewitt for a 1954 feature on bathing hats; featured a painting of the steam locomotive ‘Mallard’ by Paul Gribble.