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Ashton, Ernest R
b.1867-1951/2
Self-taught photographer.
He took his first photographs in 1887 as a result of reading a shilling manual on the subject while living in the Australian Bush (The Linked Ring, Margaret F Harker - referencing AP 25 November 1925)
Known address 1897: Camden Park Tunbridge Wells
Member of the Linked Ring Brotherhood.
Ashton's Linked Ring pseudonym was the "Orientalist" because he traveled and photographed extensively in the Middle East and India.
Royal Photographic Society/Contributor.
Friend, neighbour and protoge to H P Robinson.
1913: elected President of the Tunbridge Wells Photographic Association.
Ashton was most likley a reasonably well off middle class gentleman who could take up photography as a serious hobby. The early link to Australia is yet to be explored.
A web search reveals two Photogravue images produced often:
Evening Near Pyramids 1898 and A Cairene Cafe 1901
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The online records of the Exhibitions of the Royal Photographic Society 1870-1915 reveal that he participated in exhibitions in 1897 and 1908.
Ashton was published in Camera Notes - a photographic journal published by the Camera Club of New York from 1897 to 1903. Photographs in Volume 2 Number 2, October 1898 and Volume 2 Number 2, October 1898.
Then it is interesting to track him through his later photographs:
1911: A smoker, Jubbulpore, India
1929: Burgos, Spain
1929: Palma, Majorca
1930: Jayce, Yugoslavia.
1932: In the Jasmine Tower, Agra Fort India.
1932: Across the Lebanon mountains, Syria
1932: The Great Mosque, Damascus
1933: Rabat, Morocco
1934: Lake of Geneva
1934: Reids Hotel, Madeira
1934: A tropical sunset, Trinidad, British West Indies
1934: Cartagena, Colombia
1937: Amundsen’s airship hangar, Spitzbergen, Norway
1938: The Italian Riviera
1938: Young Norway
1939: Tristan da Cunha
1939: Sierra Leone
1939: Simonstown, South Africa
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Literature: article by Ernest R Ashton. Memoirs of a photographic pioneer. IN BJP June 13 1930.
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