‘I don’t method folks to take photographs of them, I method them as a result of I’m ‘

Nik Roche is a panorama gardener turned documentary photographer from south Wales. The 54-year-old hadn’t picked up a digital camera till he was 47. He has instructed of falling in love with images, why he likes to {photograph} people who find themselves a bit completely different, and the way he hopes to inform tales and have conversations by means of his footage….

I used to be 47 after I purchased my first digital camera. To then I’d been a panorama gardener all my grownup life and I’d by no means even thought of images. My cellphone nonetheless had buttons on it. I nonetheless don’t know whether or not I understand how to take a “good” image as such. Photography is subjective – particularly when it’s of individuals.

Some photographs communicate to some folks and a few don’t. What makes us cease on one sure picture, particularly within the image-led world through which all of us now dwell? Maybe it’s one thing about our personal background.

I met Tony, a rugged kind of chap I’d come throughout on the streets of Swansea a couple of years in the past, by probability. He’d been instructed he didn’t manage to pay for to purchase the pint he’d ordered at a close-by pub and he was clearly fairly aggravated that he could not discover his method again to the pub from the cashpoint.

I observed fairly lots of people had been crossing the street to keep away from him however I assumed I’d try to communicate to him. We sat and talked for some time and he later invited me to his residence.

Crossing the street to introduce myself to him ended up being probably the greatest selections I ever made as a result of it turned out he’d had an extremely fascinating life.

He had his personal home in Clydach in Swansea however he lived within the woods behind the home in an Arctic bell tent. Prior to that he lived in a collapse Nepal.

Tony by no means posed for me. I don’t like posers. He simply let me take footage of his life as he lived it.

With Tony the mission grew to become about how somebody lives outdoors of societal expectations. He struggled with home life. He coped with life higher residing within the bell tent.

As we spent extra time collectively he grew to become a very expensive good friend of mine. I used to be actually impressed by him and ended up residing in a caravan myself simply after he took his personal life in 2022.

When circumstances modified in my life I assumed: ‘Let’s try this now.’ It’s robust, there are components which are pleasant however it isn’t simple. I’m sorry Tony by no means acquired to see the influence he had on me.

He took his life simply after we acquired Arts Council of Wales funding to create extra work collectively. He’d at all times questioned what life would have been like if he’d stayed within the collapse Nepal and so we had supposed to go again there.

I’m drawn to the folks on the margins, so to talk, however I solely take pictures of individuals as soon as I totally immerse myself of their lives and stroll of their footwear. I don’t method folks to take photographs of them, I method them as a result of I’m .

I take pleasure in making pals and I spend loads of time with the chums I make the place I dwell in south Wales. Sometimes I can go months with out taking any footage in any respect however the digital camera is at all times there with me simply in case the time arises.

To me images is about dialog, I consider it as a touch upon society. What am I making an attempt to say with this? Who am I chatting with?

One of my favorite footage is of the caravan child. That got here alongside as a part of a mission primarily based on a council property close to the place I dwell the place I wished to discover the lives of people that have change into trapped in a cycle of incarceration, freedom then again to incarceration. I used to be questioning what attracts them again to the place the place they dedicated all their crimes.

In order to have that dialog I needed to go to a spot the place criminality had existed traditionally. I’ve no real interest in poverty. What I’m interested by is trauma and its end result. Why have folks discovered themselves in that cycle?

I discover it’s quite a bit simpler to debate issues like that by means of pictures. I wrestle speaking about these items out loud. It feels much more pure to say what must be mentioned by means of footage.

There had been children taking part in there and one in every of them had gone right into a caravan and he regarded out at me. Although there are folks within the work it isn’t essentially about these folks immediately. It’s about folks like them.

I haven’t picked up the digital camera since Tony handed away. It nonetheless hurts an excessive amount of in the mean time. I’ll proceed sooner or later for positive, I simply suppose I haven’t labored my method by means of it but.

Scroll by means of a few of Nik’s footage beneath.