Jessica Bard is a photographer, writer, life-long foodie, and a works as a culinary professional.  Her current imagery finds a home on Instagram as @jessicatylerbard, but her passion is “re-visioning” her body of work from the 1980’s.  As a girl skateboarder, punker, and clubber in New York City and its’ environs, Jessica captured the scenes of her teens and twenties with a naïve, but intuitive style of black and white reportage. Beyond the bounds of the gritty city, Jessica was lucky to have a family home in the Hudson Valley where she could embrace the antidote in nature photography.

 

Key images from her massive archive have been sought out by filmmakers and are featured in award-winning skate and music scene documentaries: Godfathers of Hardcore, New York Hardcore Chronicles, OG: the Harry Jumonji Story, and DeathBowl to Downtown: The Evolution of Skateboarding in New York.

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Jessica’s interest in photography was bolstered, when her Greenwich Village high school, Elisabeth Irwin, required photography classes and provided free film and a darkroom for 4 years. Working on the high school yearbook, encouraged another skill, photo editing. In college, she refined her talents as photo editor for the student newspaper, The Load, at SUNY Purchase.  Still a student, she took a part-time job as assistant photo editor at WWF Magazine (we’re talking the wrestling, not wildlife). But the money was better made in the catering world and as she veered towards the culinary side of things, and moved back upstate, her skateboarding life faded out.

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During her tenure at CIA (we’re talking culinary, not government intel) she did her work-study in their publishing department and upon graduating was hired as the full-time photo editor.  Books are lengthy labors-of-love and after 5 years, she moved to the faster paced world of magazines. Jessica used her fully established skills to work at food magazines as a photo editor, producer, and stylist. She now resides at the family homestead with her husband, kid, and cats (who have their own Instagram accounts).