Berks County Composite Photography Country Country Roads

No. 13. From the “Country Roads” Collection

April 15, 2018April 15, 2018 Jay M. Ressler 0 Comments Berks County, Composite Photograph, Country, Country Roads, Pennsylvania.

Give Peace a Chance

Hear the School Bells Ring

Hexed and Snowbound

Over the Road and Through the Wood

Tarred Awt

Broken Windows

Previous posts on this blog featured pictures from the Country Roads: An Uncommon Take series including Nos. 3 and 11 in 2018 and Nos. 36, 44, and 50 in 2017. I posted an earlier version of “Broken Windows” in No. 50. The current version posted here is the final one as it was exhibited in March at Art Plus Gallery in West Reading, PA. “Tarred Awt” is a wordplay on the colloquial pronunciation of “tired out.” Those unfamiliar with local renditions of English in Pennsylvania Dutch country may not get this, and even those who are familiar with the accent sometimes need to hear it pronounced rather than in print to understand.

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Jay M. Ressler

Jay Ressler Composite Photography, Encaustic Art, and Oil Painting He is an outstanding location photographer and painter, with an eye that can capture the soul of a Havana back street as beautifully as the sip of a hungry hummingbird, often with compelling black and white images. Jay Ressler is best known for artistic expression that lives in layers between opposites. “I like to explore boundaries,” he explains. “Boundaries between consciousness and the unconscious, between reality and imagination, between certainty and skepticism.” He does this by compositing his own photography in multiple layers to produce stunningly original, interleaved images. Using Photoshop, other image manipulation software and a variety of digital effects, he paints one photographic layer on top of another. He takes advantage of textures he's captured along with an array of processes for manipulating light, contrast, and color to tell the story. “Distorting and reinterpreting the literal 'machine moments' captured by the camera is as old as the art of photography,” he insists. Jay occasionally extends his multi-layered approach to encaustic mixed media creations. Based on ancient techniques, the process begins with cooking his own recipes of beeswax and damar resin and applying this medium between the layers of photographic images, along with various pigmented compounds and materials to add color, texture and expression. Either way, the results are riveting. The viewer is drawn into an unfolding, dreamlike scene that might be heart-warming, haunting, gritty, poignant or magical. Sometimes, within the various layers, all of the above. The award-winning photographer/artist has many dimensions himself. He studied advanced digital photography at Pittsburgh Filmmakers and advanced encaustic techniques with leading instructors in the field. He worked as an underground coal miner, steelworker, machinist, labor and civil rights activist, copywriter and commercial printer. He has a BS in Psychology from Albright College.

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