On a wet day a man was shouting and swearing in the street, and passers-by crossed the road to avoid him. But Nik Roche instead decided to approach the man in Swansea to find out what was wrong. It was the start of a friendship between him and Tony that would see the men living together and Nik documenting his new friend's unconventional and sometimes chaotic life through photography.
"I'm a fully immersive documentary photographer, so I make friends, I form relationships and trust and then I make pictures - eventually," explained Nik. "I don't go in to make pictures, I make them eventually if it feels right." On the day they met, Nik discovered Tony was distressed because he had gone into a bar, ordered a drink, discovered he did not have enough money to pay for it, had left to go to a cashpoint and could not find the bar again.
"I just strode back into the bar with him, we sat there and two-and-a-half years later we were the best of friends and I ended up living in his house," said Nik. "Tony had a house in the Clydach area of the city, but chose to live in an Arctic bell tent in the woods behind it. "He would do whatever was in front of him sadly.
.. but I wouldn't have called him a major drug misuser.
" "He needed a few cans to function in the morning. "Then two or three more and a switch would go off and you'd see drunk Tony - but I wouldn't put him in the same class as many, many, many, many others I've met." Nik said Tony never had money for his prepayment gas and electr.
