**John Denny Ashley's** (1946-2006) life work was the pursuit and wooing of his first love, photography. His first photographs emulated the work of early pictorialist photographers such as John Brook, Nell Dorr, and Wynn Bullock. As a loner, Ashley was appreciative of others who lingered on the margins of life. This insight led him into photographing subjects who could exhibit their "otherness" before the camera. He also found a niche in animal portraiture, which produced his only publication, the 1990 Simon and Schuster book, _Thoroughbred: A Celebration of the Breed._