ahhhh office parties. who doesn’t love them? it brings to mind that seinfeld episode where elaine’s boyfriend fell off the wagon and they hid under the desk like it was cape fear. :)

sportsmedia, or SMT, celebrated its 20th anniversary last week by hosting a casino night. geoff works at sportsmedia (they make the yellow lines and scoring for sunday night football, xgames, NBA TV, MLB network, etc), and i was photographing the evening’s event for his office. it was a pretty cool idea for an office party! they rented tuxedos for all the guys that work there and hired a party company to come set up and deal casino games. the more “money” you won, the more times your name went into a drawing to win one of three ipads. it was neat!

martinis

geoff gambling… he ended with a little over $59,000! that would’ve more than paid for our wedding, honeymoon, and a down payment on a house….if it wasn’t monopoly money. :(

raleigh event photographer

the owner of SMT and a few of the workers have a band (augmented reality) and they played at the end of the night. gotta love guitar shots!

casino raleigh event photographer casino party

the owner’s mom was there being adorable and gambling with the best of them!

casino party casino party raleigh

as she was about to pull the final raffle winner out of the bowl she said, “watch, i bet i’ll pull my name!” and sure enough, she did!

raffle winner augmented reality

our friend travis, modeling how suspenders are perfect for doing that old-timey-thumb-holding-suspenders-thing.

casino night

*note: there has been an adjustment since the first winner did not claim the prize. a second winner has been drawn!

i am pleased to announce the winner of the end-of-summer contest for a free session and 50 prints! thank you to everyone who entered! this was such an enjoyable experience for me and i really loved reading what you thought about the photographs. i hope to do more contests like this in the future, so please stay tuned!

and the winner is….. (drum roll, please!)

DERICA JUSTICE!

derica said, ” This is a hard choice! I love them all, but since I have to choose, I pick #2. It is a great shot of the groom and shows the romance & love their special day was filled with!”

on the second round of drawing a winner, i was going to be surprised if someone from the newsletter didn’t win since they have their chances doubled. sure enough, derica is on the newsletter list, so it just goes to show the advantages of getting put in the pot twice and signing up for the newsletter! :)

derica owns bon bini print and design and did our super fabulous halloween wedding invitations (will post some pictures of those later), and i’m sure we’ll have a great time coming up with a neat shoot!

thank you, everyone!

end-of-summer contest

finally i have a moment to breathe in order to post the end-of-summer contest. :)

in order to thank the readers of my newsletter and blog, i wanted to give back at the end of this summer and give away one free session of any kind with fifty free 4×6 session prints to one lucky participant. it’s a value of $450. :)

details: below i have posted a blog entry that features my top ten favorites pictures from this year. they’re numbered but in no particular order as it was hard enough to choose ten. :) just comment below on which photograph is your favorite out of the ten listed and why. viola! your name is entered into a program that will pick a random name.

IF you’re on the newsletter reader list, however, your name will be entered twice. write somewhere in the comments that you’re a reader and i’ll check with my list to confirm it.

simple as that! i’ll announce the winner on FRIDAY, AUGUST 13TH via the blog and you’ll receive a free session, an online viewing gallery, and fifty 4×6 prints. you can use this session for anything: senior pics, engagement, pets, family, etc. whatever you want.

rules: you must be within 30 miles of raleigh, nc or pittsburgh, pa to win the session. OR you can also win if you’ll be in raleigh, nc or pittsburgh, pa in the sometime near future. pittsburgh is slightly harder to orchestrate, but if you win, we’ll find a way to get the pictures somehow. :) comments are always welcome from all over the globe, but you either have to live around here or be coming here soon. sorry, uzbekistan!

so again, here are the steps:

1.) live within 30 miles of raleigh or pittsburgh OR be traveling there in the near future.

2.) leave a comment with the number of your favorite photograph below and why.

3.) get your name entered into a drawing to win the free session and prints (name entered twice if you’re on the newsletter mailing list).

4.) winner announced via blog on friday, august 13th!

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so that’s it! have fun commenting and good luck!