Tom began taking photography seriously in 1968 as a high school student in Queens New York, after acquiring his first single lens reflex camera. His love for black and white photography grew with his sojourn west with spectacular vistas and new subject matter.

Tom worked on his high school and college yearbook staff and had an impressive amount of work published while at the University of New Mexico in the early 70's.

Today Tom enjoys portraiture of friends and family as well as documentation of remnants of the past. In the last several years he has photographed the remaining bits of the American Western expansion, which centered around the automobile and more specifically the "Mother Road Route 66" This subject holds much allure for Ashe with fond memories of a road trip that brought him to New Mexico with his family in the early 1960's.

In the years since he began to document this important piece of Americana much of his subject matter has been erased by development never to return to the days of splendor and innocence.