panel block context

So I spent a few hours trying to figure this out - there has got to be a way and I'm just missing it - especially since Panels is uncharted territory for me!

On some pages I've got an image field that I want to appear in a block or panel in the header (above the "content" section where the rest of the page shows up). I thought a Mini Panel would be perfect because it would pick up the "context" and use that node's image field. I was wrong.