


From Paper Journal, interview with photographer Tom Wood:
When you were shooting most of your work, were you working at the time? How did you spend your days?
Up until 1998 I used to teach two days a week, around the corner from where I lived, and five days a week I used to take photographs. I had just enough money to live simply.
I did photography as well and what I like about your work is the aspect that it’s close to home. A lot of photographers tend to find stuff in other places and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I really like that element of finding interesting things close to home and being close to the people and the characters around you.
The Photie Man book was called that because that’s what the kids used to call me. I shot video all my life as well, so when I took my kids to the park with the video camera and I used to video them, as well as what was going on in the park, you could see peoples relationship with me, it was very clear. One time I left the video recorder in the park and these three lads bought it back to me.
Really! Well I guess there’s a trust there, they’re familiar with you…
That’s right. I used to give everyone pictures. There’s a funny story, about some of the more toughish lads I used to photograph. One of the them, I guess he was the leader of the gang; actually there’s a picture in the book, they were part of the ‘New Brighton Outlaws’ – anyway, they were sitting on top of a car and some girls were walking by and they just turned around and were looking at them. One of these lads used to like me, you know, I used to go round his house and have a coffee and stuff and he would sit there and smoke a joint, a normal guy you know? So this lad rode a scooter and one day he went to work early in the morning and where he lived was very quiet and it was 5 o’clock in the morning. He was at an intersection and went through the red light and he was killed. So there’s a picture of him in Photie Man, leading a gang of lads towards this girl infront of the Waltzer, I’m not sure if you know that picture; he’s from there, Mark, and I had that in the Last Resort exhibition at the Open Eye, a joint show with Martin Parr back in 1985; a very famous show from which Martin kind of made his career on. So that picture was on the wall and it was stolen! And guess what? It’s on the wall of Mark’s mother living room! You know, other people that you’d photograph and you’d see them 10 years later and they’re getting married and asking me to take their pictures. So it’s like an exchange, you know? They tolerate me and I try to give something back.
Do you think it’s changed much – I mean, nowadays there’s a lot more suspicion of people. Do you think if you were to be doing this now, you’d have the same response from the community?
I just don’t know, I mean I still photograph people, I still look at people but not as much. In those days you were fed up with kids pestering you, you used to take someone’s photo just to shut them up. Believe it or not in the early days, people used to call me David because the only photographer that people knew was David Bailey. And then I got the Photie Man tag… but as I said, you used to photograph someone just to shut them up. So six months later you’d make a print and you’d have a big box of prints always there by the door, so you’d see someone and tell them to go round the house to pick up a print.
It’s really nice, that element of your work. I mean people think you take a photograph and you’re taking something from someone else but you’re actually giving them something and there is a real exchange going on in your work. What is it about you as a character that makes you able to do that?
I just felt that I never had the right to exploit them in any way. On the cover of Looking for Love, it was my first book (in 1988), it was about nightclubbing. So the two girls on the front cover saw themselves in the book shop and they thought I was making loads of money and they came around to the house; I showed them the accounts and how I was making a loss every year, so I gave them a print and they were happy, you know?
When I went to the women’s market every Saturday morning for all those years, and I finally got a book out called People, there were a couple of pictures in there from the market. The market traders bought a couple of books off me to help me along, cause they were pleased. I would never sell any of the pictures for advertising, I mean I was offered lots of money for some of the nightclub pictures… it wasn’t easy walking down the Dock road and taking those pictures; I felt guilty anyway, I didn’t want to exploit the people… those doing car boot sales selling pornographic tapes; I didn’t know that. One week I’m not there and they’re raided by Trading Standards. So they’d see me the next week and they think I’m connected with the raid.
More