Fliegel Jezerniczky Expeditions

Safely back from a splendid three weeks in the Ennedi, doing the Ounianga - Niola Doa - Archei - Bachikelé loop. We found several unreported sites in the Niola Doa area, a trip account will be in the works soon.

With another year slowly coming to an end, I wish everyone a Merry Christmas & a happy, successful New Year!
Please check out the website for our 2023 exploits and forthcoming plans for 2024/25 (https://www.fjexpeditions.com). There will be some further updates after the Holidays.

Continuing with the backlog, I have completed the account of our 2022 November expedition to the magnificent rock art sites of the Ouri plain (Eastern Tibesti, Chad):
https://fjexpeditions.com/expeditions/past/tibesti22/tibesti22.htm
All things going well we hope to return again in November 2024

70 years ago...

In 1953 the pre-production model of Britain's first commercially available Hollerith Electronic Computer was exhibited at Olympia, London. Its creator was Dr. Raymond Bird, our dear travel companion of many desert expeditions. Having passed 100 this summer Ray is still going strong, I will see him later this week.

Received the sad news that Tilman Lenssen-Erz passed beyond the western horizon yesterday, to finally meet Harald Pager.

Tilman will be best remembered as the editor of the magnificent HBI Pager / Brandberg volumes (in reality author, the tracings are Pager's but all the text is by Tilman), which set the absolute standard in rock art publication that will be very hard to surpass. I was privileged to call him a friend, our thoughts are with Marie-Theres and the family.

Another big surprise from Ouan Bender. On the spot it was only possible to make out the vague outlines of a large sitting woman, back home DStretch revealed a fine couple, reminiscent of a similar scene at Sefar.

One of the highlights of our recent Tassili n'Ajjer trip was this delightful depiction of a drinking cattle mirrored in the water. I am not aware of any publication presenting this unique scene, though Yves & Christine Gauthier presented a very similar one at the last AARS meeting. The cattle are superimposed on some earlier roundhead figures.

Back from the superb second part of our Tassili trip, will be working on the trip account as time permits. We had the privilege to visit some very remote and unique sites, even by Tassili standards.

The reason for the long silence was spending a superb five weeks in Namibia, first visiting some very remote rock art sites on the Brandberg and the Mikberg area, then doing a tour of some of the finest rock art and natural highlights of the country. Trip account will be in the works over the summer.

It's that time of the year again... :)
https://aars.fr/rencontres-annuelles-de-laars-2023/

Rencontres annuelles de l'AARS 2023 | Association des Amis de l'Art Rupestre Saharien Les prochaines Rencontres de l’Association des Amis de l’Art Rupestre sahariense tiendront le vendredi 19 et samedi 20 mai 2023au Centre Archéologique Européen de Bibracte,au cœur d'un site à la fois archéologique et naturel, Bibracte – Morvan des Sommets, classé "Grand Site de France " ...

Taking advantage of the Easter long week-end I have completed the account of the second part of our October expedition to Algeria, visiting some very remote rock art sites in the southern Tadrart which were off-limits for the past decade:
https://fjexpeditions.com/expeditions/past/tassili22/tassili22.htm

Giancarlo Negro (1945-2022), one of the giants on whose shoulders I was privileged to have stood on. He sadly passed beyond the dunes on the western horizon ten months ago.

Photo taken in the Great Sand Sea exactly twenty years ago (16 February 2003) on our only trip together.

Had some quiet weeks, allowing me to complete the first part of the account of our Tassili n'Ajjer expedition last October, a ten day trek visiting most of the classic sites on the plateau recorded by the Lhote missions. Hundreds of photos of the rock art sites, both the well known ones and some rarely seen or never published scenes:
https://fjexpeditions.com/expeditions/past/tassili22/tassili22.htm

We plan to return for another trekking expedition to the area of Tissoukai next October: https://fjexpeditions.com/expeditions/plans/oct23/oct23.htm

Over the holidays and past couple of weeks I completed the account of our trekking expedition to some very remote rock art sites in the Upper Brandberg, Erongo and Mikberg areas (Namibia):
https://fjexpeditions.com/expeditions/past/namibia22/jun22.htm
Please also check out the planned expeditions for upcoming trips to the rock art sites of Namibia and the Sahara:
https://fjexpeditions.com/expeditions/plans/plans.htm

With this year slowly coming to an end, I wish everyone a Merry Christmas & a happy, succesful New Year!

Please check out the website for our 2022 exploits and forthcoming plans for 2023/24 (www.fjexpeditions.com), I promise there will be some updates over the Holidays.

On the long flights to and from Chad I had the time to complete the account of the 2021 November Ennedi expedition, something to read and see while waiting for the accounts of this autumn's trips:
https://fjexpeditions.com/expeditions/past/ennedi21/ennedi21.htm

Vultures have a bad press, and are rapidly disappearing from all over the Sahel region due to human persecution, though they are essential to the ecology. We were very pleased to encounter a large flock of 33 individuals consisting mostly of critically endangered Rüppell's vultures (Gyps rueppelli), feeding on a cattle carrion in the Bahr el Ghazal between Salal and Moussoro.

Safely back in N'Djamena after a superb problem-free three week expedition to the Ouri plain (Eastern Tibesti). It was a long and difficult way, but well worth it, we managed to see all of the sites along the Northern part of the plain which we were unable to reach on previous expeditions. The trip account will be in the works over the holidays, till then a few of the highlights.

After being closed since 2012, this year it was finally possible to visit the plateau above Djanet to see the classic sites recorded by Lhote and his team. We made a 10 day trek to see the principal sites, but also had the opportunity to visit some remote localities which have not been visited by anyone for decades. This is just a sneek preview, a full trip account will be in the works.

I love the desert, but to be honest, I really missed this...

The remote Ouri plain contains extraordinary and spectacular rock art, set among one of the most grandiose and pristine landscapes of the Sahara, only ever seen by a handful of people. This November we plan to return, for those interested we still have a few available places:
https://fjexpeditions.com/expeditions/plans/nov22/nov22.htm
Of course for those unable to come, the wonderful book is still available.

It's been 23 years since the FJ Expeditions website had been up and running. I'm long overdue with updates, to celebrate here is a sneek preview of what is coming (the full accounts of our earliest Sahara trips, with scans of the old slides).

After postponing several times, finally I jumped head first into a project that will likely take up on-and-off several years: the scanning of my pre-digital era slides (about 13 thousand...). After reading the reviews of various available scanners on filmscanner.info I settled down on a Reflecta ProScan 10T which seemed to offer the best price/quality combination. The scanner is advertised as 10k dpi maximum resolution, however in reality tests show that there is no perceivable resolution difference between a 10k and a 5k scan. 5k is still more than enough for the purpose, it produces 7125x4750 pixel images (30 megapixels) with a resolution showing the individual grains in the original film, all detail is captured. For colour fidelity I use SilverFast rather than the OEM software, it produces far better results, especially when it comes to restoring faded colours. The most impressive feature is the infrared scratch/dust removal that physically identifies the faults on the surface of the film rather than using a software based method which can eliminate some photo details. Below an example showing a very scratched slide from my 1981 Sudan trip (the tomb of the Khalifa in Omdurman) showing the result with and without scratch removal, plus a detail of the maximum resolution scan. Scan + processing takes about 3.5 minutes per slide, but after the 2 minute scan one can pre-scan the next one and select the settings while processing completes. I found that I can do six slides (the number that fits the strip film holder) in about 30 minutes, including the time to remove from frames, place into feeder and scan. If anyone plans to do the same, I'm happy to share my experiences in more detail.