WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

If you see an upscale magazine with advertising for Bacardi, Burberry, Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani, Yves St. Laurent, Hugo Boss, or Prada, there’s a good chance a local high school graduate was probably involved in their production.
Tracy Doyle is well on her way to becoming one of the leading lights in the advertising business of the New York luxury fashion industry.
Tracy lived her early life and school days in Nestleton, attended Blackstock elementary school and Port Perry High School, graduating in 1996.
She is now an executive producer at the advertising agency Baron and Baron in New York. This world renowned international advertising agency specializes in fashion and takes care of the branding and advertising for luxury products such as those mention above.
Tracy’s foundations in this creative field began at home where her father, John Doyle, had always shown an interest in drawing and photography and passed those interests on to his children. When Tracy decided to enrol in a photography course at Port Perry High School her father gave her a camera for Christmas.
He further encouraged her by building a dark room in their basement so that she could learn about processing film, and developing and printing photographs.
Retired Art teacher at PPHS, Lane Prentice remembers Tracy.
“She was an incredibly well organized and extremely creative student,” he says. Tracy is quick to add “I learned all my discipline, organization and management skills from my mother and my photographic skills from my father.”
Tracy’s all-round expertise in photography skills and her prints enabled Tracy to produce an impressive portfolio for her application to Ryerson. Here she was accepted into the four year photography and media program.
At Ryerson her interest in fashion was heightened and Tracy set her first major goal: to break into fashion photography in New York. In order to achieve that goal Tracy started out as a photographer in Toronto at Saturday Night magazine and was promoted to photo editor and then to the same position at Maclean’s magazine.
Tracy’s Toronto experience enabled her to get her first break in New York with the Time Out New York a magazine devoted to current activities in the arts, culture and entertainment scene.
A year later Tracy was hired as the photo editor for the relaunch of Life magazine. The magazine lasted for three years but due to the advent of the internet and the changing face of media, Time Warner decided to cease production of the magazine in April 2007. Ironically it still continues as an internet publication.
Tracy was then hired by fashion photographer Steven Klein as a producer and then for celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz. For Tracy, her “big break” was to be hired by Fabien Baron.
“I had long admired Fabien, even studying him in school. Working for him is a distinct honour, ”Tracy adds. “The experience at his agency has been a tremendous, working with the best fashion photographers on the planet and shoots all over the world,” she says.
Tracy is now based in New York and calls Manhattan home, having lived there for almost seven years. “The excitement of living here in New York is that each day is a challenge,” Tracy states. “It is the kind of place where you have to prove yourself every single day, otherwise someone will gladly step in your place without missing a beat,” she claims.
Even with such a busy schedule, Tracy still finds time to teach at two universities in New York; the School of Visual Arts and Parsons New School.
Tracy takes time from her busy schedule to visit her parents’ home in Nestleton a few times a year. She always takes time to visit Port Perry to stroll along Queen Street and visit the shops.
“I have such vivid and fond memories of hours exploring Queen Street shops and strolling through Palmer Park with my grandmother, Sophie Blyth,” she explained. “Sadly she passed away about three years ago but the memories of the shops, and Emiel’s Place where I worked after school, are still as clear as if they were yesterday,” she states.
Tracy’s mother, Carol, takes pride in her daughter’s accomplishments.
“Tracy finishes everything she puts her mind to. She is very determined. When she was 12 years old, she dusted shelves at the Blackstock hardware store just so that she could buy some designer clothes,” she says with motherly pride.
From dusting shelves in Blackstock and serving meals at Emiel’s all the way to an executive position at the top advertising agency in New York is a remarkable accomplishment.
“It’s all very rewarding,” Tracy comments. “There are times when I wonder why I have worked so hard, but then as I approach Manhattan from some far away assignment, I sigh to myself and think, it’s good to be home, and its good to be able to slip back to my real home in Scugog too.”

By Paul Arculus
Focus on Scugog