Endless Ways of Looking at Relationships

Featuring Ashley Markle Words by Nastasia Khmelnitski

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Exploring relationships and intimacy, which usually remains unrecognized, eventually brings family members to better communication and creates closer connections. Ashley Markle constructs new dynamics inside her family and builds a distinct portrait, expanding from self-portraiture to adding her mother and stepfather into the narrative. Ashley explains the process of working on Weekends With My Mother And Her Lover, “There are endless ways of looking at this work and these relationships, and it was my goal to try to communicate those themes on a personal level while also thinking about the general themes of family.” Photography comes as a therapeutic tool that acts as a glue, connecting the missing dots and allowing to rebuild the relationship. By constructing the lost moments into new scenes, Ashley establishes a new connection with her father after a 10-year absence in her life.

Ashley Markle is a US photographer who gained her B.S. in Digital Film from Kent State University. Ashley was recently selected for PhotoVogue Exhibition in The Next Great Fashion Image Makers and exhibited her work at PhotoVogue Festival in Milan. In this interview, we speak with Ashley about how her background in painting and education in film affect her photography today. We discuss her project — weekends with my mother and her lover — in which she researches the theme of relationship and family dynamics, photographing herself with her mother and stepfather for an ICP project. Ashley takes us through the steps of working on her series — do you know how beautiful you are — in which she focuses on building a relationship with her dad and how photography brings people closer. 

‘With my background in painting and my education in film, I believe those two mediums, mixed together, have a lot to do with the way I view the image-making process.’

My Story

Hi Ashley, it’s great to have you in the magazine! How are things going for you? What sparked your interest in photography? And how do you think your themes have changed or developed after graduation with BA from Kent State University?

I actually wasn’t introduced to photography until after moving to NY. I was working as a video producer at a digital media company, and I would take stills of the celebrity talent that came in because we didn’t have an in-house photographer, and I knew how to work a camera. As soon as I started doing that, I was hooked. The studio manager who became a mentor to me, Mike Berlin, is a film gaffer, so he would stay after work and teach me different lighting setups. From there, I researched part-time photography programs, and I found ICP. I applied to their part-time, year-long track program with hardly any idea of what I was getting into. 

Ben Gest was my first professor and the first person to introduce me to fine art photography. He also founded the part-time programs at ICP. I literally owe him my life. Jean Marie Casbarian was another standout educator. She showed me so many amazing photographers and artists to look at and always encouraged me to go deeper in my work. Even if some of the images I made were really dumb in the beginning, I needed her to encourage me to reach every depth I was thinking about.

Growing up, I loved to paint. I had an amazing art teacher throughout basically my entire education from grade school to high school, Mrs. Knisely. She was another educator that encouraged me to do whatever I wanted. She would provide all the resources necessary to make anything and any idea I had. She pushed me to go for it. With my background in painting and my education in film, I believe those two mediums, mixed together, have a lot to do with the way I view the image-making process.

‘From the beginning of my photographic journey, I’ve always done self-portraiture. So it just made sense to add the people closest to me into the frame.’

weekends with my mother and her lover

With this project, you research the theme of family relationships and raise questions about how society tries to normalize family dynamics. There are also themes of control and gaze: the decision of who will be holding the shutter release and the gaze of the photographer — as an active participant in the frame or behind the camera lens. How did the project start, and what did you learn about these themes? 

This project started purely as a response to the pandemic. I was enrolled in ICP at the time, and we had to show work every other week. Before the pandemic, I was shooting with a boyfriend at the time. Then, I went home to Ohio for extended periods of time and needed something to show. So, I asked my mom and my stepdad to pose with me. At the time, I was really getting into Jeff Wall’s work, so I was thinking of that line between staged and observed while shooting with my family. 

It started with images of the three of us together. From the beginning of my photographic journey, I’ve always done self-portraiture. So it just made sense to add the people closest to me into the frame. When I got back the first set of negatives, I realized there was something here. I delved deep into work about family and thought about the nature of our family. I thought of what it means to have a stepfather and what that relationship looks like since it began as I was almost an adult. I thought of what it meant to see my mom in the role of a lover vs. a mother. I thought of the depth of my mom and I’s relationship and how that was impacted by the addition of my stepfather. 

There are endless ways of looking at this work and these relationships, and it was my goal to try to communicate those themes on a personal level while also thinking about the general themes of family and how others perceive the relationship between a stepfather and stepdaughter, mother and daughter, and mother and stepfather.

‘You could know somebody for a lifetime and still not know everything about them. But with my dad, we have a lot of blanks to fill in. This process will last forever. The more we get to know each other, the more we can explore in the images.’

do you know how beautiful you are

Photography comes not only as a tool that allows one to research a theme but also it helps to rebuild relationships and connect. Reuniting with your father and getting to know each other anew, after long years of absence, with photography, you can recreate moments that never happened and build new memories. Which questions in this ongoing project remain unanswered? What direction do you think you might take it next? 

I don’t know if there are specific questions that remain unanswered in this project. I think it is more about continuing to get to know each other. You could know somebody for a lifetime and still not know everything about them. But with my dad, we have a lot of blanks to fill in. This process will last forever. The more we get to know each other, the more we can explore in the images. Aside from the past, there is also the present. We are figuring out how we fit into each other’s lives now. What is my role as an adult daughter? What is his role as a parent to an adult daughter? It sometimes feels like life is moving too fast for us to figure it out. As soon as a rhythm is set, something new is added. Like now, I have a very significant other whom I just moved in with. My dad has never known me with a partner. Now he has to get to know my partner and figure out how he fits in with that relationship. I have even photographed them together. It was incredibly awkward but equally amazing. We will constantly have growing pains, and the beauty of photography is that I can not only show those growing pains but get to the bottom of them and force us to grow closer by shining the light on them and thinking of them from very different perspectives.

I have a lot of things I want to do with this project. I want to continue to shoot my dad with my boyfriend. I want to shoot my dad with his many siblings. I want to recreate scenes of how I imagine my dad to have been when he was my age or what I picture him doing when we were apart. The end goal is to turn the project into a huge book with thousands of images. 

‘I can never just take a simple, straight-on portrait of someone; it actually makes me feel ill. Before any commissioned project, I make sure I look over my personal work so I can remain true to myself.’

Commission Projects

With your commission work, you address themes of the body, body language, and portraiture, which are central to your personal projects. What is your approach to creating balance and perhaps a certain similarity in vision between commercial and personal work? 

Although it is very difficult, I try my hardest not to think of them as separate entities. My work is my work, and I shoot based on the same curiosities that carry me through every project I take on. I keep the same themes, but I communicate them in different ways. Through fashion and portraiture, I’m focusing more on lighting and posing. I’m trying to keep the same dream-like and unnatural feel. I can never just take a simple, straight-on portrait of someone; it actually makes me feel ill. Before any commissioned project, I make sure I look over my personal work so I can remain true to myself. 

I repeat the themes I focus on and figure out ways that I can apply them to the project at hand. Body language is a tool I use to communicate emotions, so I push that very hard in my fashion and portraiture work because it is always at my disposal. While I am always trying to remain true to myself, I don’t believe in making work that all look exactly alike. I am a complicated person drawn to many aesthetics, and I like exploring different ways of shooting a story. So while my work may visually look different from each other sometimes, I believe there is still something hidden under the surface (perhaps in the emotion of the image) that lets the viewer know I am the author.

A Sneak Peek

Could you provide us a sneak peek into the project you’re currently working on or some of the themes in development? 

I’m obviously still working on the project with my dad; I will always be working on that. I have also begun shooting with my boyfriend. I’m still figuring out what the work is about. I’ve never been in such a loving and healthy relationship before. It feels similar to when I started the project with my dad because, in the beginning, I didn’t really know what I was doing, and it's quite exciting to have that feeling about a project again. Themes of love and self-love carry through the work and general visualization of two young people exploring the world together. We like to shoot when we travel, and I’m still trying to piece together what that means for the project. 

I’m also about to begin the biggest commissioned story of my life. I can’t talk about it much, but it involves me going back to my high school, which is very exciting but equally terrifying.