Hero > Anton Sop

While you and I sleep at night, Anton Sop begins his work shift. I've known and worked with him for about 10 years now and we figured out early on that this guy does not do a day job. Anton thrives for the dark sky and glowing light to be inspired whether it be coding or taking photos. That is cool with us. We like to work with people who do things in their own way. We knew Anton as a guy who would work with us for code and unique programming skills. Since he was such a master with code, we wondered what he would do with a camera? Other than spilling coffee in it, falling off monuments with it and breaking it, he has taken photos that are absolutely awe-inspiring. With no training Anton takes "Vanessa" (the camera) and has captured hundreds of amazing images for us from a unique perspective that we never would get from anyone else.

In honour of his birthday, we put a video together titled "REMSOP". This montage of his work shows you exactly how these images translate when used in a project. Amazing. you'll watch it over and over. The images we used in the video are also for free on the www.Stock-Archive.com promo site. While the time- lapse video clips and other video clips he produced for us are not on the free site, they will be available when the site launches. We thank him for his amazing work on both the Stock Archive website and the great photos he has taken for us.

Happy Birthday Sir Anton!

See more of Anton's photos on Flickr

Free Images: REMSOP

Sleep is good. Sleep aids the process by which creativity forms associative elements into new combinations that can open up new creative directions that we can't even imagine during our waking consciousness.

We like to work with the night birds who sleep during the day and play at night. Their creative view is very different than everybody else. We like that... we like it very much. Anton Sop is one of those amazing people who see beauty in all the places that other people can't, or they are just too blind to see it. These raw and gritty images tell stories that can be used to inspire, create a mood or maybe shock your audience. We respect the image, the man and the idea behind it. We even left the sensor dirt in place and kept the images "unedited" as cleaning them would be a disservice to the image, the photographer and to you the end user. Don't believe it? Check out how we used the images in Anton's hero profile video above.


We now have over 2000 free promotional images available to pre-registered users. Once we launch we will have over 60,000 images, illustrations, motion, audio and flash elements to choose from. Our loyal pre-registered users will get amazing promotional offers once the site launches. To pre-register, go to www.Stock-Archive.com


Interested in more REM sleep info? Read up, sleep tight, be creative.

A good cause: United Way Campaign 2009

Each year Stock-Archive and Victory Arts makes time to work with the United Way Ottawa, to produce their campaign video and photos. It is a good cause and we are proud to have helped for over 4 years now. This years theme is "reDISCOVER COMMUNITY. What do you want your community to be?" Think about the message, think about how you can help in your community. Every little bit helps and it is for a great cause. To find out more about the United Way Ottawa, and how to donate, you can visit them on their website http://www.unitedwayottawa.ca

For production on this years video we tip our hats to Will Reid for his amazing direction and motion graphics magic. Masayo Shimizu and Ken Cooper for their amazing motion graphics and design contributions. The amazing audio score was composed and mixed at by David Burns and Wayne Bartlett. www.Bartmart Audio

To view the previous United Way Videos that Stock Archive / Victory Arts produced please visit our Victory Arts link on YouTube here. There are a whole pile of other portfolio videos we've produced there to get your juices flowing.

Hero > Masayo Shimizu

Arigatou gozaimasu Masayo! Arigatou gozaimasu!

While it has only been a few days since you left on your journey back home to Japan, your presences is already missed here at Stock Archive and Victory Arts.




For those of you who think you don't know Masayo, there is a good chance you know her because of her amazing work. Masayo produced endless amounts of quality illustrations, photos and motion graphics for us here at www.Stock-Archive.com and www.victoryarts.com.

Masayo came to us from Algonquin college where she was graduating from the Graphic Design program. We got a call from the Graphic Design Coordinator one day before co-op started asking if we had room for one more student. We said yes and boy are we glad we did. Masayo proved to be a major asset to our illustration portion of the archive. Masayo has pumped out hundreds if not thousands of amazing illustrations for the archive, illustrations you for you to take advantage of each week on our free promotional site and our later once we launch. Each conference we've attended people would always stop and comment that the illustration was amazing! We agree it is amazing because Masayo is amazing! While we could ramble on all day about how amazing she is you should just visit her website at www.masayoshimizu.net,

As a thanks, we put a tribute video together for her. Stay gold Masayo! Magi Kakkoii!




Masayo thank you so much for everything! We hope you enjoy your video.

Free Images: Something fishy going on.

Wow thanks for the amazing feedback on the vector aquatic illustrations (Illustrated by our very own Masayo Shimizu who just sadly moved back to Japan. We miss her already! She will be featured as our next Hero so check her out).

Some of you were asking for a photo with goldfish and water bubbles.... yes, we do have blue water also. But who says that water always has to be blue? Blue is so 1989. We are 2009 and we are red hot right now we added some red water and orange gold fish to the bowl. Take a chance and see what happens. Pretty cool if you ask me. These amazing photos were done for us by an intern who Masayo introduced to us. Madoka Nemoto came all the way from Japan a year ago today to intern with us for a month. She did some amazing and unique photos. We'll feature Madoka in the up coming weeks. For now enjoy the images.

The images should be up over the weekend or early next week.

We now have over 2000 free promotional images available to pre-registered users. Once we launch we will have over 60,000 images, illustrations, motion, audio and flash elements to choose from. Our loyal pre-registered users will get amazing promotional offers once the site launches. To pre-register, go to www.Stock-Archive.com

Free Images: There is always a bigger fish.

Now, we may be classified as one of the small fish... but we have lots of spunk, determination and we are pretty darn cute. We can swim circles around these big guys for sure. Do you see any other company giving away over 2,000 photos and vector illustrations for free as a promotion? Nope! As far as we can tell, you can only get that many free high quality images free with Stock Archive at www.Stock-Archive.com. That is some of the great feedback we've been getting from people. You've mentioned that "other" stock sites give free images but they often are less desirable images at poor resolutions and you appreciate the quality images and illustrations. It is our pleasure and we are happy so many of you like what you see here. We like to be a little different. We do like to try and get images out to people who request as best we can.... as with this weeks special request. A member asked for some aquatic illustrations for a school project. Our answer is simple. "Here you go... enjoy this weeks free vector illustrations.

Free images should be up this weekend.

Free Images: What happens in Vegas...

...should not always stay in Vegas. Good thing we don't follow that motto! We figure there are a million stories that can be captured with simple images of Vegas. Our Photographer kindly took these amazing shots for us while on his vacation few years back. These wild west shots are unique to say the least. Not your typical Vegas shots. We like it that way. We know you'll figure out a unique way to use these gritty images.

The Free images should be up sometime early next week. It is a long weekend here so it may be Tuesday. We'll try to get it all up earlier though! Enjoy the long weekend!


We now have over 2000 free promotional images available to pre-registered users. Once we launch we will have over 60,000 images, illustrations, motion, audio and flash elements to choose from. Our loyal pre-registered users will get amazing promotional offers once the site launches. To pre-register, go towww.Stock-Archive.com