101 Pictures

101 Pictures focuses on photographer Tom Wood’s celebrated work taken in Liverpool and the Wirral between 1978 and 2001. Most of the photographs in the book were captured within a 10 minute walk of Wood’s Wallasey home. They show families, couples and individuals inhabiting the streets, pubs, workplaces, parks, and markets where his regular presence allowed him to become an accepted part of the social landscape. Collectively the photographs create an affectionate document of the city and its inhabitants during this period.

The book is presented as a high-specification hardcover with printed cloth cover. A special slipcase edition of 100 copies is also available.  This contains the book together with an analogue C-type print, (10x8 inches) of the image ‘Chelsea Intro’.*  This will be hand-printed on Fuji Gloss Maxima by Paul Lowe at Spectrum Photographic. Paul has worked closely with Tom over two decades, and is an expert in making fine hand-prints in the traditional darkroom setting. The print will be signed and numbered.

Drawing from different series of work, the book highlights Wood’s experimentation with various types of camera and film, print papers and textures, and demonstrates his skill as a colourist. This experimental approach was partly due to cost, as occasionally he had to use out of date film stock for his photographs, but the results show divergent visual interpretations of his subjects, and his use of medium formats reveals a wealth of visual information during the printing process.

"Many of the images that I have selected here are portraits; these are strong, albeit subtle and understated. Tom photographed whole families, groups of workers, couples and individuals, always conveying a sense of dignity and respect.” – Martin Parr

Photographs in the book include those from his most well-known series including All Zones, Off Peak and Bus Odyssey which were shot over a period of 18 years as Wood travelled throughout Merseyside by bus, using an annual, go-anywhere off peak ticket.The photographs capture a city in motion from the crowds at bus stops to the introspective passengers, and the views of the urban landscape from the elevated perspective of the bus window.

Images from Looking for Love, shot at the now demolished Chelsea Reach disco pub in New Brighton in the early 1980s, are included in the book. Photographed on busy nights, the images depict the heat and uninhibited drunken hubbub of the club’s clientele
Other series included in the book include those from Photie Man, Wood’s seminal photobook published in Germany (2005) titled after a nickname given to Wood by locals as he was always on the streets with his camera; and Women’s Market - taken at Great Homer Street Market in Liverpool where Wood photographed almost every Saturday morning between 1984 and 2000.

 “Wood is both an obsessive and a maverick and, though often described reductively as a street photographer, his work does not sit easily in any tradition.” – Sean O’Hagan, The Guardian.

101 Pictures also includes images from his less familiar series such as his Mersey Ferries publication Termini,; photographs taken at Camell Laird Shipyard during the time the workers were fighting redundancy; the Football series made around the Anfield and Goodison football grounds on match day in the 1980’s and 90’s; and a few previously unpublished images from the very start of his career.
The photographs in the book have been selected by Martin Parr, and it has been edited and sequenced by artist Padraig Timoney who also contributed the cover design.
Tom Wood was born in 1951 in County Mayo in the west of Ireland. He lived and worked in Merseyside between 1978 and 2003, before moving to his current home in North Wales. Wood has published numerous books, including Looking for Love (1989), All Zones Off Peak (1998), Photie Man (2005) and Men / Women (2013). His work has been include in many group exhibitions, has been the subject of solo exhibitions at ICP, New York; MoMA, Oxford; FOAM, Amsterdam, The Photographers’ Gallery, London and the National Science and Media Museum, Bradford amongst others, and is held in the collections of major international museums.

Padraig Timoney is a New York based artist and long standing collaborator with Tom Wood on many of his books. Padraig has contributed two paintings to the project, which will be printed onto cloth to form the book and slipcase covers."