The Fezziwig News by Stu Jenks

All 8 1/2" x 11" A/P archival pigment prints by Stu Jenks for $25, shipping, handling and taxes included...

Image: "Queen Esther Baptist Church, Lancaster, Virginia" (c) 2011 Stu Jenks (Just down River Road from Victoria's house. Love that luscious red carpet. And for you nocturnals out there, it was handheld. Rare for me.)

In this time of making photos on iPhones and Macbook Pros and only looking on screens, I forget I'm a old-school guy. I make a 8 1/2 x 11 work print on archival paper of EVERY image I make. EVERY one. It's the only way, for me, to accurately check for color shift, density, composition, etc. I really like my iPad screen but it's no way to make a good print.

And I have hundreds, if not thousands, of work prints artist proofs at my studio.

If you see an image of mine on The StuBlog or on my old website or on the Fezziwig Press Store or in any of my books, there's a beautiful small print in a box somewhere, perhaps with your name on it. And since I'm organized, I can find it.

Many of you can't afford my larger prints. I understand. I don't have an extra 50 or 100 lying around either. But I do have an extra $20 for stuff I really like.

So if you see an image of mine on any of my sites or in any of my books and you want it, it's yours for $25, shipping, handling and tax included. (I believe in paying taxes, sales and otherwise.)

Just email me at my facebook page or through the StuBlog or at stujenks@gmail.com, and tell me what print you would like or just pull the jpeg and send that to me.

I was just watching the Tarhells lose today in basketball, working on images at my computer when I thought, 'I bet people don't realize I have boxes of work prints here.'

You all do now.

Love and light,

Stu

p.s. Ignore the catagories belows. The computer went wacky. Another reason why I prefer a print in the hand as opposed to an image in The Cloud.

Now available, on the Apple IPad: The Transpersonal Papers (1861-2010) and Bozo In Love

Been a long time coming for The Transpersonal Papers (1861-2010).

Three editors, two proofreaders, two designers, four printers, and hours, days, weeks, months, years, lifetimes, (I know I'm overstating), of writing, traveling, shooting, editing, remembering, hiking, and more writing, shooting, and editing, but I'm not complaining. No, no, no.

And apologies for not having the dough right now, to print The Transpersonal Papers as a coffee-table book as I had originally planned. ($10,000, it would have cost. Maybe someday.) But you now can buy it, for $14.95, as an Ebook on the Apple IPad, and I expect it to be available within a couple days on the Nook and the Kindle as well.

I just looked at it on my new IPad. The photos, text and design look grand.

And as an extra surprise, Bozo In Love is now up on IBooks too, ($9.95), as well as the rest of my catalog: Flame Spirals, Hoop Dancing, and Dementia Blues, on IBooks, Nook and Kindle.

Just in time for Christmas.

And don't worry. All but The Transpersonal Papers can still be bought as a book book through Fezziwig Press. I have plenty. Just go to www.fezziwigpressonline.com, for the hardbounds and paperbacks, but go to ITunes, today, (and Kindle and Nook, soon) for the ebooks.

Heavy sigh from my third story apartment balcony. I look out onto the Tucson city lights in the valley below. Cold, dry air embraces me. I inhale deeply. Exhale.

A very good night in the desert.

Think I'll make a cup of coffee with egg nog and play some Angry Birds on my new IPad.

Time to celebrate.

 

Terri Windling needs our help...

Terri Windling needs our help. It's complicated but help is truly needed. Good people have organized an online auction at Magick 4 Terri where art, books and other wonders can be gotten by the highest bidder. I've donated four books to the auction. Please go and check out the site and give and bid as you can. Terri helped my career greatly a few years back. She is my friend, a wonderful artist and writer, and one of the sweetest people I've ever known. She needs our help. Tis the season. Give as you can.

"My Ghost Likes To Travel..."

"My Ghost Likes To Travel..." [For Howard & Peter] (c) 2003, 2008 Stu Jenks


        In the farewell issue of "The Journal of Mythic Arts", Howard Gayton created a little slideshow using some of my images to highlight his poem about the desert. Due to the miracles of software, he recorded himself reading the poem, with the ambient sounds of singing birds and barking dogs in the background, and he then loaded it up on the web, for all to hear and see. I'm assuming he recorded the piece, in or near his home in Dartmoor, England.
        Anyway. One of the images he choose for the montage was "My Ghost Likes To Travel...", a print that rested on my website, unhappily I suppose, for I never really liked it that much, but it was a hoop dance, so there is was, on my site. Then I remember that my art rep in Raleigh wanted the same shot recently for a Christmas show. I sent a number of prints of more familiar work that he asked for, and told him that I didn't send 'The Traveling Ghost' for I didn't like the photo very much. But then I saw it again in Gayton's composition and reconsidered the image.
        I reopened the old photoshop file, imported it into CS2 and reworked the shot, taking out the reds, add a slight sepia tone and most importantly, lowering the contrast but popping the whites and the
blacks, if that makes sense. A slight crop here, another little pop there, and I feel in love with the image, like I hadn't in the past.

        [Two lessons I learned (or rather relearned):

        One: Continue to listen to others when it comes to my work. They have eyes that are not mine, yet their eyes are still part of The-Very-Large-God-Space as am I. As are you. As is everything.
        And Two: Don't be afraid to take an old negative out of the box. Treasures lay there sometimes.]

        The last line of Howard's poem reads "Even here, Spirit says, I can thrive." You got that right, buckaroo.

        (To see Howard's composition, go to Endicott Studio website and look for the Farewell Issue. It's in there. I would have just inserted that link into my blog, but for some reason, I can't get it to work tonight. The Ones and Zeros are fragile sometimes.)

"The Devil's Needle, Arbroath, Scotland" (c) 2005, 2008

"The Devil's Needle, Arbroath, Scotland" (c) 2005, 2008 Stu Jenks

[Excerpt from the story "Twenty Four Hours in Scotland"]

    6:30 a.m.

    I miss the sea. Christ, I've only been away from it for a day. I could smell it in Edinburgh last night, but I couldn't see it. I need to see it again.
    A9 to Perth, then catch the A90 to Dundee.
    Dundee. I like the way that town sounds, plus that city is right on the sea. Let's do it.

    7:30 a.m.

    Light now. Overcast. A bit rainy just north of Dundee. Hungry as hell. Got another cup of horrid coffee at a gas station back in Perth. I need some real food and a better cup of Joe.
    Then I see the Golden Arches and laugh out loud. What better place to get an Egg McMuffin and a big cup of strong coffee that at the McDonald's just outside of Dundee.
    Twenty minutes later, I'm fat and happy in the Mickey D. parking lot, sipping a good strong American cup of coffee. On my Michelin map, I notice the word 'Cliffs' just north of the little town of Arbroath. Bet I can see the sea from there.

    8:00 a.m.

    Clouds low. A strong drizzle. Not mist, not rain, something in-between. A soccer field's behind me. The clock tower of Arbroath a few hundred yard to my right. A paved path leads up to higher ground. And right in front of me is the English Channel. White caps roll toward the shore.
    I take a very deep breath.
    Grab the Rollei, the tripod, my smokes and lock the VW.
    The parking lot is quite large. Bet on the weekend, quite a few local folk come here, to play soccer or sit by the sea. Just me and another car are here this morning though.
    I walk across the lot and step onto the smooth asphalt path that appears to skirt the edge of the sea. Then I see a small sign, nicely carved on a plank of wood.
    “Beware of Dangerous Cliffs. Take Great Care.”
    I smile. How eloquent, how English.
    A minute later, I realized they aren't kidding. The path runs right along the edge. Sometimes, the edge is a gently descending hill that anyone could easily walk down, but more often than not, the edge is a sheer cliff face, a drop straight down at least fifty feet to wet rocks below. No fence. Just a park bench every so often to rest on. What a delight, to not be protected from my own stupidity, that if I fell to my death, it would be on me. And if I am safe, it's on me too. And just as important, the view isn't obscured by a silly fence of some sort.         
    Waves explode on the rocks below, showering a curtain of mist. Beautiful.   
    A sign points toward The Devil's Needle. And then I see the Needle itself, a large arch of rock that reminds me of the Canyonlands of Utah. Except the Canyonlands don't have this exploding ocean surf around them. I gingerly walk down a grassy slope toward the arch. Make a spiral in the sand and rock? No. Just shoot a straight shot of the arch and the channel instead. Heavy mist coats me and my camera as I take a few exposures. I try and time it so I get the raising spray in the shot, but I never time it just right. Not a biggie. I click off a few more exposures, and then pack up my gear, but stand a while, looking at the sea. Smelling the sea. The sea smells pretty much the same here, as it does at the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia or at Bahia Kino in Sonora, Mexico. Maybe a bit more earthy and peaty in its fragrance but basically the same. My glasses become foggy from the salty mist. I usually don’t like that, but today, I couldn’t care less.
    Then suddenly I slip on a wet rock near the edge, grab the ground quickly and stop my fall into the drink. I slowly rise to my feet and take a few slow steps back, away from the edge.
    Take great care, Stu. Do as the sign says.

    [Note: The above image is an unintentional double exposure. I got lucky that the horizon lines matched up. And finally I dedicate this image to the comedian/writer/talk show host Craig Ferguson who I think lived in Arbroath for a while, though I may be wrong. Glad you didn't jump off the Tower Bridge, Craig. Glad I didn't fall to my death, as well, back in 1985.]

"Medusa Revisited" by Ben Heaven

"Medusa Revisited" by Ben Heaven (c) 2008

    [Another wonderful image by the English Nocturnal Photographer Ben Heaven. Here, in his own words, is how he made this digital photograph.]

    I shot this with my D200 which has pretty poor battery life. However there is a popular technique to remove noise that I adapted to deal with the battery issue. The technique works like this; you use a remote release with a timer (or lock down the release shooting 30 second exposures) so that you take multiple shots for the entire length of the exposure rather than one single long shot. You need to make sure there is almost no delay between shots. At the end you take an additional frame of the same period as one of the single frames, with the lens cap on. This is the 'dark frame' that you use to subtract noise from your stack of images. Using this technique you don't need to include a 'noise reduction' stage in the camera that often takes 1/2 as long again (or sometimes the total time of the exposure). You use software to combine your stack of images into a single file. I find with the D200 I can only get about 80 minutes total from a single battery, but with the stacking method, if I'm quick I can swap the old battery with a fresh one and just keep stacking!

OK, here are the specifics on this shot:

D200, ISO 100, 24 exposures of 5 minutes duration @ f5.6, 10mm. Tree painted for 2 minutes at ISO 400 and the image overlaid in PhotoShop. Processed with DXO film pack to resemble Acros 100, Terra Sepia Tone 'printed' at grade 3.

"Todd Jones Spinning" (c) 2007

"Todd Jones Spinning" (c) 2007 William Todd-Jones & Photo by Vicki Couchman

[This image was taken of Todd by Vicki Couchman, while he spun Catherine Wheels at a festival in the UK. These poi are not the kerosene type, but rather as Todd said "...just wire wool, dipped in meths in a colander type mesh. The faster you spin, the more oxygen and the hotter it gets. Molten metal spews out. Bloody effective when you're an eight foot satyr!" Todd is a very talented artist, puppeteer, performer and all around wonderful guy. Makes a hell of a satyr too. 'Meat', my brother.]