Ashley Pollock is a photographer living in Beaver Dam, Arizona, but she doesn’t let that distance keep her camera out of Southern Utah. She has a way of defending the good in our small town life, similar to The Byway.
Ashley doesn’t write, like I do. Instead, she tells stories through her pictures. Her website is covered with pictures of red rocks, sagebrush, horses and cowboys (or cow … people? If we’re being politically correct). She sees the beauty in small towns and the beauty in the desert.
The Beauty in Small Towns
I’ve often heard Southern Utah described as God’s country. The clean air, the beautiful landscapes, and the good people all attest to that. And Ashley captures the beauty in not just the landscapes, but the people.
“When it comes to my style of photography, I definitely try to match poses and locations with people, and their personalities,” Ashley told me when I reached out to her in an interview. She explained that though the most important thing is to understand the people she is photographing, her country upbringing still tends to reflect in her work.
You see, as far as Ashley wanders, she always seems to keep her Cannonville home in her heart. When I asked her what was so special about her home, she said, “When people ask where I am from, I am beyond proud to say Cannonville, Utah.
“I absolutely loved growing up in Cannonville, being able to ride my horse in my backyard, or jump on my motorcycle to race through the hills. You were a part of the community and everyone was family. I love the small town America feel, and I would argue there’s no better place to find it than Cannonville.”
Ashley’s Journey
Ashley wasn’t always a full time photographer. If you know her, you probably know that she loved her previous job in health care. She told me she liked being “the help that people needed,” saying that she never thought she would leave her old job.
But eventually, the long night shifts started to be too much for her and her little family, so she decided to focus on finding happiness and joy in her job again. That meant helping people in a different way.
Ashley’s favorite part of photography is similar to her favorite part of healthcare: helping people. Her biggest goal for the people she photographs is to “make every single person who steps in front of [her] camera feel beautiful and confident in their own skin.”
Ashley’s instrument for good is her camera. She uses it to capture beauty not only in landscapes but in people too — their personalities, their homes, their upbringing. My instrument for good is my pen (well, it’s actually a laptop, but “pen” sounds cooler). I want everyone to see that there is good news out there. Our county commissioners’ instruments for good are policies and being vocal. What is your instrument for good?
– by Abbie Call
Feature image caption: Ashley Pollock with her little family in Southern Utah. Courtesy Ashley Pollock.
Abbie Call – Cannonville/Kirksville, Missouri
Abbie Call is a journalist and editor at The Byway. She graduated in 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in editing and publishing from Brigham Young University. Her favorite topics to write about include anything local, Utah’s megadrought, and mental health and meaning in life. In her free time, she enjoys reading, hanging out with family, quilting and hiking with the dog she’s getting soon — fingers crossed.
Find Abbie on Threads @abbieb.call.