Nick Hedges was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire in 1943 and studied photography at Birmingham College of Art from 1965-1968. Hedges photographs for the housing charity Shelter were taken between 1968 and 1972.
The charity was launched in December 1966 to highlight poverty and lack of proper housing. The charity produced reports, advertising campaigns and posters. Hedges' photographs of Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford and London played a significant role in exposing the terrible conditions faced by as many as three million people in Britain at that time.

In 2014 an exhibition of Hedges' Shelter photographs, entitled Make Life Worth Living, was held at the Media Space at the Science Museum and presented works from the Media Museum's collection.