Tom Wood

Thomas Wood is a renowned street, portrait, and landscape photographer.

Biography of Thomas Wood

Thomas Wood was born in 1951 in Crossmolina, County Mayo, Ireland. During his adolescence, his family moved to England due to religious tensions, as his Catholic mother faced challenges after marrying his Protestant father.

Wood pursued an education in conceptual painting at Leicester Polytechnic from 1973 to 1976. However, his interest shifted to photography after extensively viewing experimental films.

In 1978, Wood relocated to Merseyside, where he spent several years. Since 2003, he has lived in North Wales, where he also works as a part-time photography lecturer at Coleg Llandrillo Cymru.

Wood focused on street photography in Liverpool and Merseyside from 1978 to 2001, capturing scenes in various settings such as streets, pubs, clubs, markets, workplaces, parks, and football grounds, featuring both strangers and familiar faces including neighbors, family, and friends. Concurrently, he undertook a long-term study of the landscape in western Ireland, North Wales, and Merseyside.

His first book and most renowned series, "Looking For Love" (1989), offers an intimate glimpse into the lives of people at the Chelsea Reach disco pub in New Brighton, Merseyside. Wood captured these scenes regularly between 1982 and 1985.

Wood's first major British exhibition, "Men and Women," took place at The Photographers' Gallery in London in 2012. His first comprehensive UK retrospective was held at the National Media Museum in Bradford in 2013. His landscape photographs were showcased for the first time in 2014.