What's up? I'm Melvin Ashe a Urban Fine Art Photographer drawn to the rhythm of the city — the way light hits concrete, how people move through fleeting moments, and the quiet stories hiding in plain sight. My work lives where the raw meets the poetic: between chance and composition, between what’s seen and what’s felt. I’m born and raised in Baltimore MD, now residing in Atlanta. Baltimore is where I became interested and involvedin photography. Street photography was and still is my first love that I enjoy shooting. In my younger days of photography my uncle connected me with a Photographer friend of his by the name Jay Bennette. Jay was a well-known and respected photographer in Baltimore. He became my mentor and shared lots of valuable insights on life and photography. We were very good friends for many years up until he passed in February of 2020 which I was devasted by. I continued doing my thing with street photography with Jay always in mind. Later the same year that I lost Jay, I reconnected with Jim Alexander who I met when I first moved to Atlanta but lost contact with. Jim is a living legend with a vast and important body of work to the black community and culture. He was friends and a mentee of the late great Gordon Parks and now he's my friend and mentor who shares great knowledge and insight on life and photography. They say God works in mysterious ways!
While black and white photography is the heartbeat of my work, I also explore color as a way to uncover new layers of emotion and narrative. Whether I’m documenting street scenes, capturing the intricate world of insects through macro photography, or creating urban portraits and headshots, my goal is the same — to find beauty in the overlooked and meaning in the everyday.
I don’t stage moments; I chase them. My images are fragments of life —spontaneous, imperfect, and human. They reflect the energy of the streets, the stillness of small details, and the honesty of connection.
Photography, for me, isn’t just about seeing — it’s about the world around us and translating that feeling into light, shadow, and form.
