Amy Winehouse
by Blake Wood
(Taschen, RRP £30)

AMY WINEHOUSE was as well-known for her image as her music when she died in 2011. In  this book Blake Wood's aim is to present “the person, not the persona” with these previously unseen photographs of a woman who is nearly unrecognisable when stripped of her rats’ nest beehive and elaborate winged eyeliner.

[[{"fid":"6349","view_mode":"inlineright","fields":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-inlineright","data-delta":"1"}}]]Aspiring photographer Wood and the Back to Black musician met and became friends in 2008, at a time when she was being hounded by the media and battling with addiction. He hung out with her in London, where they spent time doing handicrafts and making pillowcases out of old T-shirts, giving him the opportunity to catch the singer at her most unguarded and intimate moments.

While the images of her applying her make-up in a dingy pub toilet don’t add anything new to the narrative, those of her practising drums in her home do offer a tantalising glimpse of a musician striving to work in the midst of personal chaos. It would have been good for more images of this kind to be included, but the book is dominated instead by shots from an extended holiday the pair took in St Lucia.