He might shoot a few thousand images at any given festival, but he will be deleting
extraneous photos from the collection as he goes along. “When I dump the photos
to my computer, I end up with anywhere between 200 and 400 photos,” says Ressler,
a number that he’ll trim further to around a 150 photos for the event, choosing the
ones that he feels most capture the flavor of an event – while also managing a
pleasing symmetry and keeping the key figures in focus. Often, the set will include
his signature 180-degree views over the shoulder of the DJ, capturing the crowd
amassed in the audience below.
“On the flipside, there are more mega
festivals, so I have been shooting more
festivals than touring with artists.
Though Ressler usually spends no more than a couple of months out of the year on
tour, though he may visit many countries in that time. He recalls one grueling sixweek four-continent solo tour in particular: “I started by heading down to Australia
for Stereosonic. After two weeks doing that, I headed to Manila for a charity gig
with Zedd. Then a festival in Kuala Lumpur, followed by a festival in Jakarta right
after. From there, I was planning on a week’s vacation in Tokyo, but Calvin Harris
wanted me to do his UK/Ireland ‘Greater Than’ tour with Tiesto, so I headed right
to Ireland to join up with the bus tour. After those dates, I took a fight to India to
head to Goa for the Sunburn festival. After that was finished, I took many long
flights back to L.A., where right after dropping by my place for an hour, I headed
to the train station to take a train down to LED in San Diego for New Year’s. I was
still (barely) able to photograph, but the weeks of jetlag made everyone think I was
dying from how I looked.”
The well-travelled Ressler still has a few new locations he wants to
visit. Next on his bucket list is Alfa Future in Russia. “The main stage
looks amazing to photograph!” he says. Then there are the locations
he loves enough to return to again and again. One of these is Japan.
“I want to shoot as much as I can in Japan as
possible, so I always look for ways
to go over there.”