I’m still working some of the kinks out - but come on over and check out my new blog. Stop by, say hello, stay awhile

I’m looking forward to getting to know you all again!

Jeanette

Jeanette LeBlanc Photography Blog

Well, as you may have guessed by my continued lack of posting here and on flickr - my mojo is still hiding out somewhere (perhaps under the piles of dirty laundry, or the boxes waiting to go to Goodwill? If you happen to see it, please do let me know.). I keep my camera close by, in hopes that something will happen to rekindle my passion for / obsession with photography. It’s partially just been that life is crazy busy, with so many changes in the last several months that my head is continually spinning. I know I’ve still got it in me somewhere, I’ve just got to find a way to get it out!

I was incredibly honored, especially in light of how rarely I have been posting lately, to learn I had been featured on the new Blogs of Photographers website a few weeks ago. Please check it out – I’ve already revisited some photographers whose work has been inspiring me since the beginning, and discovered several new talented folks and up-and-coming photogs to (hopefully) inspire me to start shooting again.

Oh - and I just discovered this morning that my girl Brenda has some seriously awesome looking new actions for sale (I know, where have I been, right?). My fingers are itching to buy them right now…maybe that is just the incentive I need to take some pics to test them out on!

Here are a few recent pics:

Okay, in an attempt to get back to business, I finally went through my folders from the Soulographer workshop this fall (could I be any better at procrastinating). All the images I have edited so far are on my flickr - but here are a few. We had the most beautiful models - and a great location, which made the work easy.

Okay folks, clearly I’ve had a dry spell. A parched, no rain in the desert for months kinda dry spell. I’m trying to get back in the swing of things, recapture my mojo and find my creativity again. I took these few shots in San Diego last weekend, and it is truly the first time I have tried to take anything beyond snapshots in months and months. Hopefully I’ll be able to continue.

I just got finished a weekend workshop with amazing child photographer Skye Hardwick and as part of the workshop we had to write an essay answering the question “Why are you are photographer?” Here is my answer.

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Why am I a photographer? Good question.

For most of my life I assumed that I was just not a creative person. I was surrounded by creative people, yearned for a little of that magic myself, but thought that I just didn’t have it in me. Sure, I had my writing, but until recently, I didn’t consider the exercise of stringing words together a creative process. Therapy, maybe – but not creativity. In fact, it wasn’t until my love affair with photography that I realized that my writing is also art – because I go to the exact same place when I write as I do when creating photographs.

I have always been obsessed with holding on to memories. My own brain has a fairly limited ability to retain details, so my life is a series of diaries and photo albums and memory boxes – all collected in an attempt to hang on to the specifics of my life.
That is where it started.

I wanted to capture memories, and because I believe that anything really worth doing is worth doing well – I wanted to be good at it. So I got my camera and I set out to learn to be good at it. Strangely enough, it wasn’t quite as easy as I imagined. The road from there to here was a bumpy one, filled with months of self-doubt and thousands upon thousands of mediocre pictures. More than once I was tempted to give up and toss my camera in the garbage.

Then somehow, after my shutter had clicked what seemed like a million times, things started to slide into place. I started seeing something in my images and - wonder of wonders - it seemed that other people did too. Instead of just capturing technically acceptable portraits – I was starting to really *see* potential images all around me. Suddenly, art was everywhere, even when I wasn’t behind the camera. Colours took on new qualities; light danced, shadows whispered, scenes called out to be frozen in time. There was nothing in my life that was not a photograph waiting to be taken. Nothing.

My computer darkroom went from being a necessary evil, perhaps even bordering on cheating, to being part of my artistic expression. I learned to harness Photoshop to enhance my vision of what my work could and should be. Curves and levels and masks and textures used to make a fleeting fragment of time sing forever in the form of a photograph. When I’m deep at work on an image, I feel a buzz…a high that is unlike anything else. I lose myself and find myself in the magic of taking an image from raw potential to final creation. When I get to that place where I feel the image becoming what it was meant to be, time disappears and it is almost as if the image itself takes over – because there is a point were both artist and art become one.

This creative process has taught me to think less, and do more. To rely on instincts and personal style and what my eyes and heart tell me, and to worry less about focus and perfection and the directions from some forum or expert or book. To develop my internal style based on what feels right to me in the moment, because the very best art has to intensely personal and deeply experienced by the artist, otherwise it has no soul – and art with no soul cannot be received.

And so slowly I realized that this was my work, my passion, my calling, my creativity. This entire process, from beginning to end, this was my art.

In the process of just wanting to be good at something, I learned something far more important. I discovered that I had art inside me after all.

Why am I a photographer, you ask? How could I not be?

I’ve been feeling a little uninspired lately with my photography, stuck in a rut and not really excited enough to even get out my camera. Then I received a book featuring the work of Edward Weston for my birthday and was truly inspired by his work, his nudes in particular. At first I wondered if I could convince a friend to pose for me, but a few days ago I woke up and decided on a whim to try my hand at self-portraits.

I’ve wanted to give self-portraiture a shot for a while now, inspired mainly by Cinnamon’s stream on flickr. Her entire body of work is a visual treat, but her project 365 self portraits are particularly incredible. They are classic, sexy, feminine, sensuous, strong and both artistically and technically solid. Every time I visit her stream I leave wanting to get up the nerve to try this for myself, but until last week I talked myself out of it.

Let me tell you, it was NOT easy! I actually did do a series of nude portraits (NO – I’m not showing!) and let me tell you, it is dang tricky to get yourself posed right (i.e., with no bits showing that shouldn’t be shown), get the focus set correctly, set the timer and get back into position in time for the photo. This would have been a great deal easier if I had a remote – but as this was a spur of the moment thing, I had to work with what I had. I took these against our dining room wall, which is perpendicular to a wall that contains three sets of French doors, which provided fantastic light. We have dyed concrete floors, so I ended up sliding back and forth across those hard, hard floors from the wall to the camera about eight hundred billion times (or so it felt) trying to get the shots I wanted. In the end my hips, tail bones and knees were all bruised! Yikes. The most entertaining moment of the day was definitely when I looked up from my efforts just in time to notice the mail man approaching our front porch. I pulled a chair in front of myself and crouched down till he was gone. Close call!

After the nudes I got dressed and did a series of shots that I will show you - here are the few I have proofed so far.

Today I’m posting to ask for your donations as I prepare to take part in the 15th Anniversary of the Komen Phoenix Race for the Cure. The Phoenix Race is one of the largest 5K runs/fitness walks in Arizona, benefiting breast cancer research, education, screening and treatment programs. For more information about the Phoenix Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure® and the Phoenix Race, visit www.KomenPhoenix.org.

I am walking as a part of the Arizona Birth Network Team. Most of you know that the ABN is my baby, co-founded by myself and Mani over three years ago. One of the founding board members of the Birth Network, Kristan Landry, was diagnosed with Breast Cancer in early 2006. Her inspirational and courageous fight against this disease is what initially brought me to this event, and I walk this year for Kristan, and for all the other women who are fighting the same fight.

I have set a donation goal of $500.00. If each of you would consider donating just $25-$50 I can easily surpass this goal. Please use the link below to donate online quickly & securely. You will receive email confirmation and I will be notified as soon as you make your donation. I thank you in advance for your support, and really truly appreciate your generosity.

http://www.active.com/donate/phoenix2007/JLeBlan39

PS: Thanks to Dawn for being the first to donate! You rock my friend!

I promise that at some point soon I’ll post something other than vacation pictures….I just photographed a birth last week, and will take newborn pictures next week, plus I think I have four sessions this month (including my first two stranger sessions - gulp). I’ve also got a bunch of pictures from sessions BEFORE my vacation that I never got posted. Maybe I’ll get caught up someday?? Wish me luck.

“In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.” ~ Aaron Rose*

I saw this quote tonight, and it prompted me to go hunting for a picture from this set. The light was truly amazing that day, so many layers and colours of light. Truly magical. Honestly, my entire vacation was like that…

*Found this quote on the always extra-ordinary Cinnamon’s flickr stream.

My parents just bought a summer/retirement home in the small country village where my mother grew up. It was built in the 1880’s, and has always belonged to a member of our extended family. It’s right across from my grandmother’s house, and just across the road is the long dirt road that leads down a steep hill to the beach.

To call the house rustic would be quite kind. It has one sink in the kitchen, only a toilet in the bathroom and needs a ton of work. However, when that work gets completed it will be such an incredible place, a home I know my parents will be happy and comfortable in, a place I can imagine brining my children during the summers and on holidays.

There is a spot in the house that I thought just begged for photos. I didn’t get near as much cooperation as I was hoping for - but can just picture portraits taken on these steps over the years. Don’t you agree?