Roger Tiley

Roger Tiley is a Welsh documentary photographer. His work on documenting the coal mines of Wales and America has been used extensively in publications. Specifically during the UK miners' strike (1984-1985).

Tiley first worked in photography as an industrial photographer for Lucas Industries, a large car component company. He spent four years there ad subsequently decided to specialise in the documentary photography.

He studied at the School of Documentary Photography under David Hurn, who has worked for Magnum Photos.

On completion of the course in 1984, Tiley worked for a number of national newspapers and magazines, including The Times, Sunday Times, The Guardian and The Observer. Much of his journalistic work was based on the miners strike in 1984/85.

Because of his work on the miners strike, he was commissioned to produce "The Valleys Project", a collection of photographs reflecting life in the South Wales Valleys. They are meticulously annotated with context information and encompass every part of the miners lives.

Since the 1980s, Tiley has concentrated on working on commissions for exhibitions, archive collections, television and book publication. Over the past three decades, Tiley has had work exhibited and published regularly in Europe and the US and is the author of three books.

The commissions include photographing the Welsh descendants living in Pennsylvania and covering extensively the mining communities of West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee.

He is now also a lecturer in photography, media studies and graphic design at Gower College Swansea, Wales. Tiley has delivered lectures on his photographic practice in the UK and the US. He is also involved in delivering photo workshops on landscape and documentary photography at photoworkshopwales.

Tiley has recently been awarded a major commission to photograph the manufactured coast-scape in Wales. Tiley will travel the length and breadth of Wales to make photo imagery of the way the coast line has been adapted to cater for twenty first century needs. This will include photographing industrial manufacturing plants, the tourism industry and the need for power generation. The work will take one year to complete and will be exhibited and published in book form.

Tiley's work has been featured on a number of television and radio features in the UK, Europe and the US.