Nik Roche is a Welsh documentary photographer, born in 1970 in Neath, South Wales. He designed and built gardens for most of his working life and bought his first camera when he was 47. He then studied for an MA in Documentary Photography at the University of South Wales, the former Newport School of Documentary Photography, and graduated in 2020.
He calls himself a fully immersive documentary photographer. He spends a long time with the people he photographs, and they often become his friends; he may not make a picture for months until it feels right. His first monograph, The Budgie Died Instantly (Setanta Books, 2020, 128 pages, edition of 500), grew from his friendship with a man who opened the doors of his community to him. It is the first of three chapters about home, belonging, love and life in and out of the prison system.
The next chapters are It’s Hard To Report A Stolen Bike, Stolen and As Far As They’re Concerned We Are A Normal Family, the story of his friend Tony, published by Dewi Lewis Publishing. He also took part in Pictures from the Garden (Dewi Lewis, 2023), a photobook made in response to Paddy Summerfield’s Mother and Father. He keeps in mind the words of Duane Michals: “I’m not interested in what something looks like, I want to know what it feels like.”
