Tracey Quo and I met at the last Alberta Fashion Week here in Calgary. After chatting briefly, I gave her my business card. A few months later, with the help of Tracey’s friend and model Rayna McKay, we got together to create some fantastic images for her styling portfolio.

Regarding the theme of the shoot, Tracey says,

My concept for this shoot was to use very soft and wearable garments in a peaceful and picturesque environment. All the clothing had a toned down bohemian vibe and included a fair amount of silk. I had an image in my head of various Greek myths that included nymphs lounging around bodies of water … I think Rayna definitely captures that innocent yet devilish motif here.

A huge high five to Rayna who did a fantastic job that afternoon, considering the amount of mosquitoes that were out.

Follow Tracey Quo online via her fashion blog: breakfastatdior.blogspot.com

To see more of Rayna McKay, check out her Facebook page: facebook.com/rayna.mckay

Model: Venessa Mychasiw.

Here is another image I created during the iStockphoto RetroLypse minilypse event. With the overall theme of the event being retro, roller skates and neon colours were a must-have subject. All of the models were fantastic, as well as the make-up and styling. As for the roller skating, the best place to go in Calgary is easily Lloyd’s Roller Rink. We had a blast shooting there.

View part 1 – Marv’s Classic Soda Shop

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This image is available for purchase at iStockphoto. Buy it now.
For more information regarding iStockphoto Minilypse events, check out iStockphoto.com’s minilypse forum.

Exciting news today.

I am extremely happy to tell you that the poster for School of Hard Knocks 8 is now printed. I am happy because the great folks over at Hard Knocks Fighting Championship decided to use one of my photographs from the previous event as the main image of the poster. It is an image depicting James Haddad taking a foot from David Krawczyk (see below), which is one of my best images created that night while shooting on behalf of Top MMA News.

So awesome and very honored. Be sure to keep an eye open around Calgary to see the poster in action.

PS. Tickets are now on sale for School of Hard Knocks 8. Just say’n.

Just a quick shot of Teatro Restaurant. It occupies the Dominion Bank building which is located at Olympic Plaza in downtown Calgary, Alberta. I have been inside, but haven’t tried the menu yet, as it is one of the higher priced restaurants in Calgary. A lot of my friends have told me that this restaurant is definitely worth trying, so I think I’ll save my first visit for a date night adventure.

After over a year of research, hard work, preparation, and dedication, I am able to say that iStockphoto v9.0 has finally launched. This is iStock’s first major site design update since back in 2006 and I am proud to say that I am part of the design team that helped make it happen. We’re all very excited about it and can’t wait to see the new design progress into the future.

The new site still has some of the old iStock touches, but overall, things have changed in a pretty large way. We’ve been slowly introducing customers and contributors to the new look with an F5 Article and some videos on Vimeo. Now that the site is live, we’re hoping everyone can help us out by reporting any bugs and issues to us.

Kelly Thompson, COO of iStockphoto, introduced the new design to everyone on August 7th.

“At the heart, what we’ve done is separate the actual content – the photographs, illustrations, video, audio and Flash – and put it directly in front of the people who want it. The home page and the new file landing pages are all about showing content to our customers. There’s way more featured content than we’ve ever had before, and we think the new look helps that content stand out more.”

Check out the new iStockphoto.com

If you’re on Twitter, you might enjoy following the iStockphoto creative team. We tend to have pretty interesting things to say.

• @iStock

• @SoCoAddict (me)
• @jameslv
• @poploser
• @nightcommittee
• @MikaelLindh
• @troydangerous
• @Seventytw0dpi
• @limnen