Lawson was one of the founding members of Afrapix. At SACHED (South African Council of Higher Education) she received training in photography and audiovisual production. She then began doing service work – photography, writing and editing - for various civil society organizations. She has worked on Working Women, a book of photographs and interviews published by SACHED and Ravan press in 1985. After this she became a full-time freelance photographer, later moving into film and then into technical writing in the field of HIV. Her book Side Effects, The story of AIDS in South Africa was published in 2008.