Parry, a photographer and former adman, is in charge of gaining contracts in different markets. But, for instance, at Ride London, one of the world’s largest cycling events, we take nearly half-a-million photographs of participants as there are so many different locations and the race is so long.” And those numbers are steadily growing.ĭriving the point home, Parry says, “At the Mumbai Marathon this January, we had about 20 photographers who shot over 150,000 photographs of about 24,000 runners in the full and half marathons. Headquartered in New Zealand with a network of photographers the world over, Marathon Photos maintains a permanent online archive ( of over 159 million photographs of some 28 million athletes from mass participation sporting events across the world. and uploaded onto the company’s portal, just hours after the race is completed.” As for those images where the number is partially hidden, Parry says, “For that we have a search engine where you can key in what you were wearing on that day, say a green shirt and black shorts, and it will find the relevant images for the runner to add to their photo album.”
Over a leisurely seafood lunch in Mumbai, the 71 year-old explains to us how the portal works: “All those hundreds of thousands of photographs and videos are married to the bib numbers of individual runners that appear on each frame with the help of identification software. Lucky for us, they’re front and centre at the biggest runs in the country, thanks to Chris Parry, a managing partner at Marathon Photos, who made this possible when he struck a deal with Procam International, the promoters of mega running events in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Kolkata, about 12 years ago. Their secret: they hire local professional photographers to capture images and video clips of participants at these events. The world’s largest photographic site, Marathon Photos, has shot at over 6,500 of such mass participation sporting events in some 66 countries since 1998, and has more images online than photo agencies Getty and Corbis put together. Who wouldn’t want to save their moment of glory-remember, it’s more about participating than about winning-for posterity? What they don’t know is that the Englishman is running a ‘long haul race’ of his own, as Natasha Rego discoversĪ marathon is one of the greatest tests of endurance every year, across the globe, hundreds of thousands of people are caught on camera during these events. Marathon runners have Chris Parry to thank for saving their special memories.
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