David Farrell (Ireland, 1961) was trained as a chemist, but is presently a photographer and photography instructor. He received the 2004 European Publishers Award for Photography for his book Innocent Landscapes. He took part in the European Eyes on Japan project and produced the multimedia film Crow together with the composer Benjamin Dwyer. Since 2009 he has once again been following the search for the missing from the Northern Irish conflict, in the places that he had previously recorded in Innocent Landscapes.

Ash shows how deeply permeated Ireland is by Catholicism, in both an historical sense, and socially and politically. Since the 1990s, simultaneously with the country's economic progress, Catholicism has however been losing ground. David Farrrell photographed Ash Wednesday, the rite marking the beginning of Lent, symbolizing the believer's sensitivity to sins that have been committed - a ritual in which Irish Catholics still display their devotion. He also did the series Sin (from the larger series Church) on confessionals - dark, complex places where the truth is hidden from the outside world.