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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Myles Legacy spends his day in front of a computer looking for the right images.

Legacy works out of his Yellowknife home for Veer, a Calgary-based company that specializes in helping its clients say exactly what they want with the right image and typeface for any concept or idea.

Myles Legacy is an image researcher for Veer. He helps companies find the perfect image for their ideas. - photo courtesy of Myles Legacy

Everyone who works in the company's image research department has to have a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a specialty in photography.

"You need an eye for photos," said Legacy. "Some people will want an image in the style of a certain photographer. You have to know where to find this."

His assignments vary.

"People come to us when they are looking for high-end imagery," said Legacy. "One of my assignments today is a request from Fitness Magazine. They are doing a story called 'Chubby cheeks are an asset.' They are looking for lifestyle images of pretty women between the ages of 20 and 50 with chubby cheeks. We carry strictly creative images."

Legacy graduated with a fine arts degree in digital media and photography from the University of Lethbridge. He followed his degree with time in an Ontario teacher's college. It was difficult to find work as a teacher so he began working as an image researcher.

He has been at it for about one year.

"I had the job interview while while my wife and I were driving up to Yellowknife because she was going to start working here," said Legacy.

He used to work for a company called Pronk and Associates that focused on educational publishing.

"I would go through all the image stock houses," said Legacy. "We did elementary to university textbooks. University texts want a microscopic shot of a bacteria during a certain research study. I had to go out and find that image. There are a lot of legalities involved in textbook publication. We had to get proper rights to the image, signatures, pay credit to whoever owns the rights to the image. Every image that goes into a textbook costs a certain amount of money.

"We get strange requests," he added. "Someone was looking for a picture of a pregnant woman with a glowing face. They only wanted head and shoulders."