Robert Ashton, born in Melbourne in 1950, is an Australian photographer known for his distinctive documentary style that emerged in the 1970s. After studying photography at Prahran College (1969–71), he became immersed in a creative community that included Carol Jerrems, Paul Cox, and cousin Rennie Ellis, with whom he shared a studio and worked at Brummels Gallery. His 1974 book Into the Hollow Mountains, documented everyday scenes in Fitzroy with striking intimacy. It was recently republished in an expanded edition. He has exhibited widely and is known for using hand-built large format cameras and traditional printing methods such as photogravure and the Collodion process to produce his work.