Self-Taught Art

A serendipitous photograph revealed a face where there was none; it was caused by the play of light filtering through foliage against the side of Fred Ressler’s home. For the next five years, Ressler would wander through his wooded property in Hawthorne, Florida in search of images entwined in the shadows. Although he looked for anything of interest during his photographic forays, only faces and figures appeared to him, and these contributed 99% of what he saw; the remaining 1% were of animals. Some of the images were of friends and relatives; others were of archetypes, including a Native American Princess. Bob Dylan and Albert Einstein were among those who appeared to him. Ressler was featured in Raw Vision magazine (#49) with an article titled, "Walking in the woods with Fred Ressler."