Entitled "Northern Vision Quest," Leong's project is made up of 12 different images.

"It was an original (NWT) Arts Council project to produce these images. I actually did 19 of them," says Leong. She plans to use the other images in art cards.

"It was a new thing for me because composing the image out of the existing photograph is something new for sure. I had quite a hard time in the beginning. Normally I would take the photograph with the complete composition and not leave room for anything else. I've gotten used to taking photographs with leaving room for the images now. It's just a different kind of photography," says Leong.

She came up with the idea in an effort to convey more information about the North in each photograph.

"If I just used one image that was composed, I wouldn't be able to say as much as I wanted to."

Each image reflects a different aspect of Northern culture -- something Leong has had the opportunity to become very familiar with in the seven years she has resided in the NWT.

"They're from all over the North. There are images from the Baffin, from

Herschel, the Subarctic, a Northern theme for sure.

I wanted to try to get the landscape along with the people's presence too because if you just photograph the landscape, it leaves that presence out and we are part of that natural world," says Leong who made sure her images were culturally appropriate.

"The people used in certain images come from that land. For instance, we didn't put a Dene face in the Baffin." Leong, who manages to eke out a living as a photographer, brought a new twist to her calendar project.

"It's not really a calendar. I like to call it a birthday wall chart," says Leong, 35.

"It doesn't really have days. The idea is to record people's birthdays and anniversaries and special occasions because people are always forgetting those things."

She says the idea is to hang the calendar somewhere in constant sight so those important days won't be forgotten.