Ashley Ashwood Tribute

Ashley Ashwood, who has died aged 66, was one of the Financial Times's most resourceful and admired photographers during an association with the paper lasting more than 30 years.

Ashwood was a committed professional, wedded to the idea of taking the best possible series of photographs in whatever the situation and irrespective of whether the subject was a high-ranking politician or the head of a small company turning out engineering widgets.

One of his greatest gifts was putting his subjects at ease so they would be shown in a relaxed and often revealing light. Ashwood managed this most memorably with many leading political figures around the world, including Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Tony Blair, prime ministers, as well as Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe, and Richard von Weizsäcker, then German president

Ashwood had a lugubrious sense of humour that enabled him to cope with experiences that could be stressful. He was a frequent visitor to Africa on tough assignments that tested his tenacity to the full.

In one episode in Lagos in 1993, he was visited in his hotel room at 3am by members of the Nigerian security forces who whisked him to the airport and threatened him with deportation. Ashwood had the presence of mind to leave a note for his FT colleagues, referring to his captors, in his best dead-pan style, as "these gents".

Ashwood was born and grew up in New Cross, south-east London. After leaving school at 16, he worked as an apprentice photographic printer at the Daily Mirror. Helped by his technical training, he moved into taking pictures as a freelance. Ashwood's association with the FT started in 1970 when he joined the newspaper as a photographer, initially on a freelance contract that turned later in the 1970s into a staff job.

Although the staff post ended in 1996, Ashwood continued taking pictures for the newspaper until 2004. In 1965, Ashwood married Linda Holman, and the couple had two sons, Lee and Ian. He is survived by Barbara Bourroughs, his partner of the past decade.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008