An award-winning photographer with a career spanning five decades beginning by studying photography at Prahran College, Ashley first gained recognition as a commercial photographer, celebrated especially for his food imagery. Today he brings the same meticulous eye and intuitive sensibility to his personal and reflective fine art photography, through still life, landscape and organic detail. He has in recent times begun exploring darker themes through his urban night work and liminal interiors.
He approaches photography not simply as documentation, but as interpretation.
Ashley’s work has earned widespread recognition over the years. He was named Kodak Australian Photographer of the Year in 1998 and was a finalist in the 2023 Australian Photographic Awards and the inaugural Head On Landscape Prize in 2013, with his striking image of Lake George. His portrait of Nick Cave as a young man is held in the National Portrait Gallery, and his fine art prints can be found in many private collections and touring exhibitions.
“My aim is to challenge the viewer to see beyond the object as a thing-in-itself—to manipulate scale and abstraction in a way that invites reflection.”
Curriculum Vitae.
Born. 1958. Melbourne. Australia.
Education.
1966-1975. Attended Caulfield Grammar School.
1976-1980. Attended Prahran College of Advanced Education. Studied photography under Athol Schmit (Head of Department), Paul Cox, and John Cato. Guest lecturers included Lee Friedlander and Pete Turner.
Work Experience.
1981-1983. Worked as photographic assistant for John Street and Rob Imhoff.
1984-1988. Employed as staff magazine photographer by Australian Consolidated Press.
1984-2009. Full time freelance photographer.
Awards.
Australian Photographer of the Year. 1998.
Prize winner. Head On Photo Festival. Australia. 2013.
Finalist. Australian Photography Awards. 2019.
Highly Commended. Australian Photography Awards. 2019.
Honourable Mention. Australian Photography Awards. 2019.
Highly Commended. The Mono Awards. 2020
Exhibitions.
1997. Pod Gallery. Sydney.
2001. ACMP Group show. Sydney Opera House.
2002. ACMP Group show. Customs House. Sydney.
2006. Art Works Gallery. Bowral. NSW.
2015. ‘The Landscape Revisioned’ Exhibition. Bowral Art Gallery. NSW
2019. ‘Artisans of the Southern Highlands’. Group show.
2020. ‘Collective Harvest’. Group show. The Shac Gallery. Robertson. NSW.
2020. Solo exhibition. ‘In a Minor Key’. The Shac Gallery. Robertson. NSW.
Collections.
Australian Portrait Gallery. Canberra.
New South Wales State Library. Sydney.
ACMP Collection No 6. 2000
ACMP Collection No 7. 2001
ACMP Collection No 8. 2002
Various private collections.
My approach is from an intuitive perspective rather than an intellectual one. Consequently, my images tend to invite meditation rather than discourse. A consequence of working intuitively is that my projects, subject matter, materials and techniques vary with little rhyme or reason – a quite natural way of working for me. Regardless, there is a strange harmony between the arbitrary subject matter of each series of images.
I work introspectively, somewhat in a vacuum and am generally unswayed by current photographic fashion. The insular way I work helps me be true to myself creatively. I like to spend time with my subjects. As a result my creative output is slow, both in development and execution. Final images are often the result of months and sometimes years of experimentation, rephotographing and ‘living’ with work prints.
Behind each final image are numerous photographic ‘sketches’ that are used as references. I don’t limit myself to certain tools or techniques but embrace all that is available in order to capture what is in harmony with the subject. The process is all important. The way an image is captured is a vital component of the end result.
The future of my creative journey is to further refine and distil my vision – to work towards an interpretation that is sheer, poetic and pure.