2017 was our most collaborative year yet. So many people worked together to make Light Leaked amazing this year! A big thank you to all the contributors, all the artists that submitted and exhibited their work in our exhibitions, and to all our readers! We had 5 issues that were packed with content. So much so, it could be easy to miss something. This month, I put together editor’s picks of highlights and spotlights from each issue. I hope you enjoy! All grey text contains links. Be sure to tell me what your favorite part of Light Leaked was this year at the bottom of the page!
 
Have a Happy Holidays and Joyous New Year!
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--Ashley Kauschinger, Founding Editor
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January 2017: The Portfolio Issue
Juror: Dr. Terry Barrett 
 
Highlight: Dr. Barrett’s Selects & Juror Statement

“ We get to see some of what [the artists] notice in the conscious, unconscious,
​and automatic inclusions of their lenses.
We can see the world anew in as many ways as they provide.
We get to notice what they think is worth noticing, saving, and showing.
​We get to wonder why.”

Spotlight: Anne Berry’s playful yet haunting images of children and animals inspired by Flannery O’Connor and T. S. Eliot. ​

March 2017: Process Alternative Issue
 Jurors: Claire A. Warden & David Emmit Adams 

Highlight: Claire and David’s evocative selection of diverse uses of alternative process in this month’s exhibition that mirrors their own considerations of how photographic processes from all eras can be contextualized for contemporary points of view.  
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Spotlight: Christa Blackwood

March's exhibition contained a request for no nude submissions. In response to this, I shared the work of Christa Blackwood. Christa’s work is a stunning example of combining the use of historical photographic process, the landscape, and the male nude to re contextualize the history of male photographers such as Weston and Stieglitz, photographing the female nude.

May 2017: Constructing Narrative Issue
 Jurors: Dana Stirling and Yoav Friedlander
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Highlight: In May, we did a fantastic collaboration with Float Photo Magazine, in which co-founders Dana Stirling and Yoav Friedlander juried LL's exhibition while I juried an “Alternative Reality” exhibition for Float.
 
I love collaborations like this with platforms that introduce new community members and voices to the other. I get exposed to new artists and approaches to the medium, especially because of the fresh edge and aesthetic sensibilities of Dana and Yoav.

Spotlight: Interview with Anne-Laure Autin
​(conducted by Kris Graves)
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“I don't make work thinking about where it might hang and who will see it. If I did, it would compromise the integrity of my process and kill all genuineness about it.”

August 2017: Travel & Discovery Issue
Juror: Ashley Kauschinger 
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Highlight: I juried August's exhibition, and so a highlight to me is seeing the little sparks of delight and curiosity that I connected with through the process of jurying when I return back to the images.

Spotlight: In particular, this sequence of pink bursts by 3 separate artists slays me. 
(by Peter Stitt, Paula Riff, and Kathryn Reichert)

October 2017: The Subconscious Issue
 Juror: Ashley Whitt 

Perhaps my favorite issue of the year is The Subconscious Issue that was published on Halloween. It was spooktacular! 
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Highlight: The exhibition, juried by Ashley Whitt, took me into the minds of the selected artists. Each image feels transformed with a quirk of the unexpected, lulling me into a meditative state of the surreal. As Whitt says of her selects,
“I was drawn to mysterious qualities or elements that made me question... reality.”

Image by: Brian Culbertson

Spotlight: Interview with Ashley Whitt
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“ I wanted to tell as many untruths or fabricated truths that I could. I’m not as interested in making a found image, or a documentary image as I am interested in the possibility of creating in front of the camera.”