WEEK 3 – ANALYSIS – TASK 2 – TOM WOOD
Tom Wood Photography – Merseyside’s 80s club scene
Dazed Digital is one of my favourite online (or print) sources to gain research from as I feel like the content on there explores such a diverse range of art, photography, fashion and art which suits my style. Their content is catered for someone like me as their audience and therefore everything they put on their I usually find interesting. This led me to finding Tom Wood’s photography of the Merseyside’s 80s club scene. Authentic club photography has always interested me, especially when looking into the club kids of the 1980s from a previous project as it shows genuine snapshots of people enjoying their time during a night where they are completely free, focusing on the music, the environment and the energy rather than posing and constructing something spurious. In particular, the 80s has so much character and energy, it was the start of defying gender norms more prominently than before (I know this had been done previously) also the clothes and colours are extravagant.
“Drunken activity of a young, working-class community getting pissed, dancing, and letting their hair down against a backdrop of huge unemployment and economic hardship.”
Wood’s images feel like he got his camera quickly in people’s faces with flash and captured a moment that he had been looking at for a while. They seem quick and authentic, telling stories and allowing natural movements and situations to be captured. This makes me want to go to my own friendship group during a time when we’re all drinking to capture the scenes and see what I find when you look closer. Wood said that one of his images gained a lot of exposure he noticed there was a prominent part showing a man’s bulge. These details add humor and personality to the work which is something I would love to bring into my own work. Tom Wood would redistribute his photographs to the people who he took the pictures of in the clubs as his way of giving back to this community by leaving all of his prints by his door for people to look through and if they see their face, they were more than welcome to take the picture back home to keep.
“This is a labour of love. I consciously knew all my life that I didn’t want to be a professional or, if I did, I couldn’t make the pictures.” Another thing I respect Tom Wood for was that he clearly took pictures as a way to express his love for photography. He created a sense of community through his photography by capturing friendship groups and creating a nice environment for the club regulars as they could gain memories from their nights out. I would love to create a community using my own work. Either by capturing my friends like I mentioned before or by creating some sort of platform to engage people somehow. I was discussing this with my tutorials as part of my TASK 1 for this module and might investigate different types of artistic platforms further in order to gain some inspiration for my work.
