A beautiful image from Irish Work by Tom Wood Read the story behind the photographer’s highly personal new book here ➡️
is often labelled a “Liverpool photographer”. Indeed, no one imaged Liverpool more devotedly than he did during Thatcher’s reign and its aftermath. “Photie man!” the Merseysiders nicknamed Wood, who became something of a local landmark. He went on to make indelible images of the places people came together : the riotous Chelsea Reach Disco, the teeming Great Homer Street Market and the criss-crossing double-deckers which picked up toddlers, pensioners and everyone in between.
“The Mayo landscape has always had an unprepossessing element,” says Wood. “Initially, I had felt there wasn’t a lot to be photographed there. But I had my ‘familiar’ landscapes, and these fields meant a great deal to me. Since returning in 1972, I’ve hardly missed a year. There must be some nostalgia involved, but I feel there’s something more vital at work too.
Cloonamine had hardly changed and my father’s farm hadn’t been touched since he left for Oxford. It was a kind of nature reserve where deer and rabbits ran wild. Being alone on a hillside or a field I had walked as a child was a powerful feeling. These places took you out of yourself; photographing took you out of yourself. There was no sense of time or separation, but more of a sense of this is what formed me. Yet, for a long time, I didn’t want to understand this and break the spell.