“AS GOOD A SET OF PICTURES AS ONE SEES EVERY FIVE OR TEN YEARS”: FIRST EDITION OF ALL ZONES OFF PEAK, SIGNED BY TOM WOOD

WOOD, Tom. All Zones Off Peak. (Stockport, England): Dewi Lewis, (1998). Oblong quarto, original blue cloth, original photographic dust jacket. $400.

First edition, scarce second photobook by British photographer Tom Wood, signed by him on the title page, with 67 finely screened photographic plates, including 36 color and 30 black-and-white images of Wood’s photographic tribute to Liverpool.

“As Walker Evans did for Many are Called (1966), Tom Wood has chosen to document a mode of public transport. But whereas Evans photographed on the subway, Wood focused on the Liverpool bus system, and was able to gaze outwards at the urban landscape as well as inwards at his fellow passengers.” Emerging from a photographic odyssey of over 20 years, Wood’s photobook gives “a wry yet affectionate portrait” that further stands out for its independent sections of black-and-white and color plates. “Here the change from one to the other is startling, heralding a total shift in the work’s mood… The shift emphasizes the complexities of photographing life” (Parr & Badger II:308). To fellow photographer Lee Friedlander, Wood’s work contains “as good a set of pictures that one sees every five or ten years, if you’re lucky.” First edition, published by Dewi Lewis, “the most significant purely British publisher of serious photography” (Metelerkamp, The Photographer, the Publisher and the Photographer’s Book, 11).

A fine copy, scarce signed.