There was a time when the cover of GayCalgary Magazine regularly featured fun, creative, and sometimes even sexy photo shoots with local Albertans. In recent times however, big name celebrities like Madonna, Cher, and Lady Gaga have stolen the spotlight.
Can you blame us? Pragmatically speaking, as a magazine we need to put our biggest highlights up front and centre so that we make a splash. In our industry, people often do judge a book by its cover - at least until they get to know us a little better. Unfortunately this makes it hard for us to devote the cover to local people as we used to.
Nevertheless, we miss the old grassroots days when we would do the photography ourselves. It was a chance to get the creative juices flowing – deciding on a concept, gathering clothing and props, finding a setting, working with our subjects to capture some truly striking photos, and then fine tuning to get the images just right. We also miss hearing the fun stories from the people we photograph, who are surprised and excited about the wave of attention that the publicity brings them.
That’s why we are excited to announce a new monthly photo feature that will help us return to those roots: Mr & Ms GayCalgary, brought to you exclusively by GayCalgary Magazine. The feature will highlight LGBT Albertans, giving us and our readers a chance to get up close and personal with a single individual each month. Those photographed will be given the title of Mr GayCalgary or Ms GayCalgary for the month that they appear.
While we’re certainly looking to show some pretty faces, we also give weight to an individual’s talent, hard work, community spirit, personal success, and more. It definitely won’t be a skinny-male-swimsuit-model-of-the-month-who-likes-long-walks-on-the-beach type of piece. We’re looking to focus on men, women, trans-people, drag queens, and drag kings of all colours, shapes, and sizes. Each month we’ll select one person and produce a series of quality photos that capture the essence of who they are and what they do, accompanied by a minimal blurb of explanation.
So when can you expect to see the first Mr & Ms GayCalgary feature? We’re aiming to have the first one appear in November 2012, which is our 9th Anniversary edition. As of publishing this, we are starting to consider candidates. We may approach people at opportune times as we’re out covering events, but otherwise we welcome readers to contact us by Email to be considered (a recent face-shot of yourself may be required).
Even if you don’t want to be in the spotlight yourself, take this opportunity to encourage your friends to apply. You don’t have to be famous or high profile to be selected for this feature; you just have to share a bit of what makes you uniquely you. Past GayCalgary Magazine cover models are eligible.
Once selected, we’ll brainstorm some photo ideas based on what you tell us about yourself, and arrange to meet up as needed to execute these plans. We can’t promise anything like the high fashion photo shoots you see on TV, but we’ll get some great shots and have some fun in the process. We’ll also give you digital copies of your photos, including the ones we don’t use in the feature, for your own personal use.
Popularity Contest
Alexa.com is a third party website that we like to use to compare the popularity of GayCalgary.com to other websites in our province and around the world. Alexa uses a metric that judges both quantity and "quality" of web traffic to millions of websites around the world, and uses it to rank them in order from best to...well, worst wouldn’t even show up on their charts. Quality of web traffic includes duration of page views, total duration of visit, quantity of other websites linking in, etc.
GayCalgary.com has always been a very popular site; in fact, we’re told that we have supposedly been used as a success case study for trainees at Yellowpages. Not only do we get approximately 5000 visitors each day, but we have what is called "stickiness". Most visitors don’t "bounce" away from our site after a few seconds, but rather stay and browse for a while – an average of roughly 20 minutes, to be exact. This stickiness makes us great for online advertisers, who have a better chance of making an impression on visitors.
We regularly check our ranking on Alexa to see where we place, and monitor how actions we take through social media to promote articles and other content on our website affects our world ranking. Usually this is a roller coaster ride as can be expected, but over the past several months we have been steadily trending better in the ranks.
As of writing this, according to Alexa.com, GayCalgary.com is currently the highest ranked website of any LGBT publication in Canada!
September 2012
After Calgary Pride (which we narrowly squeezed into the last edition), the month of September was mostly a lull in LGBT community activity. I say "mostly" because the weekend of the 22nd was a juggling act for us to make it to events in multiple cities.
While I drove up to Edmonton on Saturday, Steve went down to Medicine Hat with a good friend of ours for the first Medicine Hat Pride Festival. While a parade was not in the cards, Medicine Hat Pride Association did put on a family friendly festival at Riverside Veteran’s Memorial Park during the afternoon, followed by an 18+ dance at Liquid in the evening.
Steve was impressed by the turnout to the event, and the participation of people and organizations out of Lethbridge and Calgary. Organizers estimated over 1100 people showed up for the festival, and say the dance was also very well attended. Unfortunately, Steve and company had to depart before the dance so that they would be back for the Calgary AIDS Walk the next morning.
Meanwhile in Edmonton, I attended the closing party for the Junction on the Saturday evening. The Junction prided themselves in their diversity of clientele, and this final night certainly demonstrated the wide range of people that would mourn the loss of the bar – not just the Junction, but the legacy of past LGBT incarnations of the space like Boots. Black sharpies were passed around, allowing patrons to write on the walls their fond memories and the things they would miss.
The next morning, Steve and I in separate cities spent a relaxing morning and early afternoon in the sun covering the Calgary and Edmonton AIDS Walks. We might have been able to cover the walks that we were sponsoring in Red Deer, Grande Prairie, and Fort McMurray that same weekend, but unfortunately we’ve perfected neither cloning nor teleportation.
The weekend of the 29th, right before our press deadline, was an event we were majorly looking forward to: another pool party put on by ARGRA. The concept for this one was a little different, however.
Starting in the evening and anticipating colder weather for the end of September, the idea was to crank the heat on the swimming pool to make it bathtub if not hot tub warm. But despite the timing, it was a pleasantly warm night to be out, even wet and in a swimsuit for someone without "insulation" like me.
Some additional details helped make the night truly magical – I mean, besides the $4 drinks! Two devices floated in the pool that not only projected multi-coloured light patterns under the water, but also spouted a fountain of water above it. Furthermore, a bubble machine occasionally released a flurry of bubbles out over the pool, and disco lights on the sidelines lit up the vapours that rose from the surface of the water.
We took the opportunity to test out a new toy of our own – a waterproof Polaroid camera that we had picked up on sale for only $30. While the image quality wasn’t great, especially at night, and the flash took a while to charge between photos, it still allowed us to get a little more into the action than we could have with our standard cameras from the sidelines.
Both Steve and I had an absolute blast, and really cut loose. We spent the evening socializing, drinking, and otherwise playing around in the water; I won a prize giveaway, and simultaneously coined and advocated HnH (half-naked hugs).
By the end of the night I lay drifting around on the surface of the pool in an inflatable aqua-hammock, totally at ease. My back was submerged in the warm water while my front cooled off from the mild autumn breeze that also wafted the smell of smoke from the bonfire at the one corner of the yard. Overhead it was a clear sky and I could see some of the brighter stars despite the city lights. I happily let Steve and others shuttle me around or give me a gentle push, as the two light-fountains floated between my knees, splashing my legs and feet gently with their spray. When 1am hit, I was almost sorry it was time to go home.