[3] Inston photographed nature, especially landscapes and seascapes as well as genre pictures in towns, particularly Liverpool.

[2]: 21  In 1902 one of his photographs was published in the American magazine Camera Notes edited by Alfred Stieglitz.

He instigate the society's Northern Photographic Exhibition in 1904, first held in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and then in Manchester and Leeds, inviting fellow council member Frank Sutcliffe as a judge for the 1906 Northern Exhibition in Manchester.

[3] When the Liverpool Amateur Photographic Association held an exhibition of the work of Alvin Langdon Coburn in 1906, Inston was part of the group of Liverpool photographers that accompanied Coburn on a visit to Birmingham.

[2]: 25  One of Inston's photographs showing a black street trader in Liverpool in 1895 was exhibited in Merseyside Maritime Museum.

[10] There was a retrospective exhibition of some of his surviving work at the Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool in 1979.