Jenn LeBlanc

In my last post —This was my year— I talked about the images that made up the journey of my year. I went through each month and chose images that summed up the month for me. They weren’t necessarily my best images (as I said) but they were the images that stuck out in my head as the icons of what I’d worked on. There is one more. The image of the year. There was one image last year that summed it all up for me. It was an out take from a studio shoot in April, and it has stuck in my craw like a fly in honey. It is so iconic because in one image is sums up the outrageous amount of fun we always have in studio, it is also from the novel illustrations which sucked so much of my living hours in the past year. I have never shared this image because it was an out, because my sweet model and her hubby -in-lit were out of character, because they were in a compromising position, because the final image (which ended up being the cover of the book) had not been released, because because because.

Today I received permission for the image from those compromised after every other reason I could think of had reached its’ own natural end. For me this image is epic, for you probably funny (I hope), for those involved it tells the story of that day (“I just don’t understand why I’m not happy here. WHY am I not happy?”) *sigh*. I understand that this image is much funnier with the backstory that has been, and will remain, unspoken. But the point isn’t that this is the best image of the year (oh, by far, by miles and miles) but that it is my image, that every time I think about it I laugh, that every time I think about going to my studio this image pops in my head. It is this kind of image, that iconic possesive force that grabs hold and remind you why you do what it is that you do, every single day.

For me, I love all the best of the year stuff and BOY HOWDY is there some amazing stuff out there, but I would like to see that one image from everyone that speaks to the heart of it. The one that doesn’t necessarily say anything to to the world in general but for you it is the summation of why. If you choose to post this image somewhere PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE put a link in the comments section! I would so very much love to see it.

Fantastic. So, while I have built up this out to monumental proportions…I should just stand aside and let it be. A great big thank you to everyone for one of the most incredible years of my life. Though I feel all my work in the Gulf is being overshadowed by this one image, I also know that for me, while both the illustration project and the Gulf project were ginormous undertaking for which I have been —and will forever be— changed, the illustration project has come to its’ own end and the Gulf project has not.

Winner winner…chicken dinner: