John Wood, a 79-year-old former telecoms engineer, has spent decades quietly documenting Glasgow’s gay leather scene from a converted attic in the city’s West End - a fact that would likely surprise anyone who assumed his kinky, intimate portraits were shot in New York during the Mapplethorpe era or in the homoerotic fantasies of Tom of Finland. His first-ever solo exhibition, now on display at Celine gallery in Glasgow, features works spanning 1982 to 2002, including a Polaroid titled ‘Cal’ and a gelatin silver print from June 2002. The neighbors, presumably, had no idea.

Wood taught himself photography as a teen by studying magazine images, and his erotic archives remained largely hidden until now. The show’s 20-year collection captures men in leather jackets, gloves, boots, and caps - often with cigarettes obscuring their faces - captured in a darkroom that was less Studio 54 and more “quiet attic in Glasgow.” At 79, Wood is finally getting his due, proving that it’s never too late to come out of the (leather) closet.