I shot a golf tournament last Monday, but we’ve honestly been so busy this past week that this is the first chance I’ve had to post about it.  Monday feels like a long time ago to me, but I guess not too much time has actually past since the ridiculous sunburn I got shooting the event STILL hasn’t gone away!

The Perfect Match Golf Classic is an annual fundraiser for United Blood Services.  Sponsors and supporters of the non-profit gather each year to enjoy a round of golf and a fun day in the sun to raise money for the cause.  This year’s event was held at the Sun Ridge Canyon Golf Club in Fountain Hills, Arizona.

The course is really beautiful.  Filled with desert flowers and lovely views of the mountains.

And what course would be complete without a little desert wildlife?

The tournament began with a shot gun start.  Each foursome starts off at the clubhouse and when the signal is given, they each head out to their assigned starting hole.  It’s quite a sight watching all the carts heading out at the same time.

LOVED the colors in this next one.

Some more fun shots . . .

I thought it was kinda funny how many of the sophisticated golfers had silly little club covers!

The valley Saturn car dealers were one of the sponsors of event.  There was a couple of holes throughout the course where players could win a car if they made a hole in one.  Here’s a shot of the super cute Saturn SKY that was displayed near the clubhouse.

At the end of the day, there was a putting contest to win a trip to Vegas . . .

Love this reaction shot – SO CLOSE!

And what would be a more fitting end to the day than a couple of cigars?

Thanks to United Blood Services for asking me to be a part of such a fun event!

Paris came to town last night at the Phoenix Art Museum as United Blood Services hosted their annual Silent Heroes recognition dinner to honor valley platelet donors. These special donors take several hours out of their day up to 24 times a year to give the gift of life to valley hospital patients. This event is always one of the highlights of the UBS calendar! Each year carries with it a super fun theme and a brand new venue to host these everyday heroes.

I was working at this particular event, but decided it was going to be far too fabulous to attend without my camera in tow! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE all things Paris so I have to admit that I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while now.

The event was held in one of the large galleries, complete with lovely works of art on each wall.

I was fascinated by the hallway through which the guests entered the main part of the museum. It’s lined through out with mirrored circles that cast fun reflections everywhere.

There were of course, tons of fun details! Each of the tables was named after a Parisian landmark and held a beautiful centerpiece with it’s own LCD light. (Flowers by Cactus Flower Florists.)

Even the food was filled with lovely colors!

But my absolute favorite detail would have to be the awards!

And what evening in Paris would be complete without it’s very own Can Can dancers?

The museum itself is such a cool place! I highly recommend you stop in and take a look around. The collection housed there includes a mix of many genres including contemporary and classic art, paintings, sculpture and even a fashion exhibit. There’s something for everyone!  I think the design of the building alone is worth the visit.

I shot this fun glimpse of one of the galleries as a reflection off a piece of sculpture by Anish Kapoor.  If you look really close you can see a tiny figure standing in the middle with a camera in hand - that’s me :-)

OK, just a couple more – on the side of the building facing McDowell, there are these cool LCD light people that are constantly walking. What can I say, I’m easily fascinated – I thought they were super cool!

Overall, it was a great event! Congratulations to all the wonderful platelet donors who received awards – you are truly heroes to Arizona hospital patients!

To find out more about platelet donation, please visit www.UnitedBloodServicesAZ.org.

Our snowy road trip came to an end at the Raddison Woodlands Hotel in Flagstaff, the location for the Northern Arizona Valentines for Life Reception.   The purpose of this very special event was to honor northern and central Arizona blood drive coordinators who’s heroic efforts brought in over 100,000 blood donations for hospital patients in 2007!  All the guests seemed to really enjoy the evening.

Here’s a few detail shots:

The YUMMY dessert tray :-)

The room looked really lovely.

Donor Recruitment Rep Ken Kotalik and his lovely wife Jennifer.

I was not the only photog in the crowd! Gotta love those handy camera phones.

Here’s a shot of the wonderful Emcee Liz Lemmer of Channel 2 News getting the program started.

The Hero Award – only 16 organizations out of 500 reached this prestigious award level in 2007.

The fabulous Hero Award winners, joined by Emcee Liz Lemmer and Donor Recruitment Director Carla Fields.

The program wrapped up with a touching Testimonial from former Tempe Police officer, Scott Tipton. Scott was shot in the line of duty and thanks 27 blood donors for helping to save his life.

Scott’s story was a great way to wrap up the evening.  Every one in the room was reminded of the importance of blood donation and how vital it can be to save lives.  All the coordinators left feeling appreciated and inspired to continue their efforts in 2008.

The evening came to an end and it was time to pack up the car and head home to the valley. Thanks to United Blood Services for letting me be a part of this special event!

For more information about blood donation or coordinating a blood drive for your organization, please visit www.UnitedBloodServicesAZ.org.

A few weeks ago I shot an event at Dave & Buster’s in the new Tempe Marketplace.  What a fun place!!!  The event was a one day retreat for all the United Blood Services donor recruitment staff.  They are a hard working group of people and definitely deserved a fun day away from the office.  The role of this department is literally to go out into the general public and get donors to give blood . . . through whatever means necessary.  Often times this means long days, evening and weekends and lots and lots of “No Thanks”.

The purpose behind the event was to motivate the staff and thank everyone for all their hard-work in 2007.  The staff at Dave & Buster’s lead the group in a couple of really fun games which made for some great photo opportunities!

It was fun watching the employees cheering each other on

A little B-Ball action

Photo Booth Fun

Score!!!!!!!

And down the stretch they come!

I loved the reflections in this shot

We’re talking SERIOUS FUN here people

Looks like somebody hit the jackpot

The day ended with a sparkling apple cider toast and the presentation of awards.

And of course a little silliness . . .

Click here to see a slide show of the event. Thanks for letting me shoot this one – it was really a fun event!

As you can probably tell, I’m busy playing catch up on my blog from all the holiday activities. This is my 4th blog in 3 days with several more to come!

Before the Christmas bustle even began, I was busy planning an event for United Blood Services as part of my day job. The event was a big community blood drive hosted by the Phoenix Coyotes at Jobing.com Arena in Glendale.

As you may know, the holiday season is traditionally one of the most diffucult times of the year to maintain the blood supply for Arizona hospitals. With many regular donors vacationing and keeping busy with holiday preparations, blood donations tend to decline. What most people don’t realize is that it takes over 700 blood donors A DAY to maintain our state’s blood supply and that doesn’t exclude the holidays!

The event at Jobing.com was held in an effort to vamp up the blood supply for the holiday season. The event was a huge success! Over 1oo people came out to donate. I was in charge of the event, so I didn’t have much time for a lot of shooting, but I did get some fun shots here and there. Here’s a few of my favorites:

The Coyotes provided this super fun inflatable slapshot for our kids area. Here’s one of our volunteers testing his skills.

Here’s a shot of some of our staff hard at work.

A hockey league practiced on the arena floor while our staff ate lunch.

Thanks to all those who came out to give blood! It was really fun to see all the holiday spirit . . .

. . . and the Coyotes fans too!

Our talented graphic designer Chris, had taken time off for the holidays, but he and his wife Lori came by to donate at the event.

Overall, it was a great event and most importantly, over a hundred donations were made that will benefit Arizona hospital patients.

For more information about blood donation, visit www.UnitedBloodServicesAZ.org.

Phoenix Wedding photographer plays paparazzi for the day

Today I brought the old D80 along with me to my day job in order to document all the Halloween festivities at UBS. For my costume I decided to go as a paparazzi. I admit, its a pretty sad costume considering all I did was wear street clothes with my camera and tape a “paparazzi” sign on me. What can I say? I was keeping it simple. Anyhow, lots of my crazy co-workers got all decked out to celebrate the day. Here’s a few of my favorite shots:

Gotta love the self portrait! Happy Halloween everybody!

On Wednesday, I shot another event for United Blood Services. The event was their annual training session and awards banquet for the High School Blood Drive Challenge. High schools around the state compete in the challenge to earn awards based on the blood drive participation at their school. Few people realize how important high school students are to the Arizona blood supply. In fact, high school students have become the single largest donor group in the state. This event is aimed at training students to maximize their blood drive potential as well as recognizing the schools that achieved awards from the previous school year. The program, as well as this event, is generously sponsored by the Arizona Diamondbacks.

This year, the training session portion of the event was actually held on top of the dugout at Chase field. It was really fun to be so close to the field, although it sure created some unusual lighting to work with. The roof was open so the field was bathed in bright sunlight, while the stands were in dark shade. The photos may have suffered some, but the students seemed to really enjoy the experinence. Here’s a few shots from the day:

On Wednesday, I shot an event at the United Blood Services headquarters in Scottsdale (as part of my “day job” of course!) The event was the grand prize give away for the summer “Drive Away a Hero” campaign. Every blood donor who gave July 1st through August 31st, was automatically entered in a raffle to win a 2007 Saturn AURA, courtesy of valley Saturn retailers. Over the course of the campaign, eight finalists were chosen to participate in the grand prize drawing where one of them would “drive away a hero” with a new 2007 Saturn AURA. Here are some of my favorite shots from the day:

Congratulations to all of our finalists and especially to our lucky winner! To view a slideshow of the event click here. To learn more about blood donation check out http://www.unitedbloodservicesaz.org/

On July 3rd, United Blood Services hosted Arizona’s largest blood drive affectionately referred to as the “Save Our Summer” blood drive. About 400 people came out to donate blood adding more than 300 units of blood to the Arizona blood supply. Thanks to everyone who came out and gave their time to help Arizona’s hospital patients. Here are some shots from the event:

Every donor recieved a goodie bag full of coupons and a commemerative t-shirt. Good times had by all.
For more information about donating blood, please visit http://UnitedBloodServicesAZ.org

As most of you probably already know, in addition to Photography, I also have a “day job” working for the marketing department of United Blood Services.

Today we hosted a media event at Phoenix Children’s Hospital to launch our “Drive Away a Hero” Saturn car raffle campaign sponsored by the Phoenix area Saturn Retailers. Saturn has generously stepped in and offered us a 2007 Saturn Aura to be raffled off to one lucky blood donor this summer. Campaigns like this help United Blood Services to motivate people to GIVE BLOOD, allowing us to meet the needs of Arizona hospital patients. And the need is BIG! It takes about 700 blood donors A DAY to support our hospitals.

In hopes of getting the word out about the campaign, we hosted a birthday party for all the patients and families in the 2nd floor Cancer Unit. We brought a bunch of toys, treats and our mascot “Ubie” to hang out with kids for the afternoon. Most of the kids were too sick from their Chemo treatments to come and hang out in the playroom where we were hosting the party, so we also went around to some of their rooms to say hi and hand out toys. So many of these kids have had blood transfusions to help them keep their strength during their treatments. Doing events like this helps remind all of us why blood donation is so important. Here’s a couple of shots from the day.

GIVE BLOOD, BE A HERO. For more information on blood donation, please visit http://www.unitedbloodservices.org/Arizona