Ari Ashley's photographs are snap shots of a quintessentially British way of life.

Reminiscent of Lartigue, Ashley's playful photographs were not made with an audience in mind but for her own personal pleasure, evoking a family album of family, friends, pets, parties and holidays all captured with a sense of joie de vivre and affection for her subjects.

Although all of the photographs were taken in recent years, they seem to belong to an idyllic belle époque long gone: a naked man galloping on a black horse across the moors, a self-portrait of the artist and her friend in costume only rooted in the near present by the modern camera in the frame, a nursery rhyme figure leaping across a large rock, and a dog dressed up as a sheep!

A self-taught photographer, Ashley's career began shooting for catalogues and progressed to editorial work for Tatler, Harper's & Queen and House & Garden magazines.