Jay Ressler • Artist

Jay Ressler • Artist

Artistic Images and Sometimes Commentary

Susquehanna River Video 

No. 43. Susquehanna Falling

Jay M. Ressler 0 Comments , , ,

I have only made a few videos. My principal interest has been still photography, but I’m increasingly drawn to the medium. In these short clips, I’ve tried to capture the roiling falls along the West Branch of the Susquehanna River near Williamsport, PA. The river was swollen the day we visited. The action of the logs and balls being churned by the river captivated me. The musical clip in the background is from Ahmad Jamal’s album Rossiter Road, which seems a fitting way to add drama to the sequence. In the Nineteenth Century, the river was the main roadway for shipping and commerce in the region, particularly for the lumber and coal barons who plundered the area and brutally exploited labor while enriching themselves.

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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