2011 Half Moon Sports Grill Fright Night Halloween Party
For the third straight year, Studio Laurent Photography & Design was once again the official photographer at the Half Moon Sports Grill in Phoenix, Arizona, for their Fright Night Halloween Party.
This year’s party was held on Saturday October 29, 2011 between 10 PM and 2 AM at the Moon Valley location. Like every year, it was a huge success and a lot of fun!
Creativity was high again this year as tons of people dressed up! Half Moon even held a costume contest with $500 in cash and prizes! In the good old tradition, prizes were awarded based on the audience’s cheering decibel levels!
Whether you missed this party or would like to experience it again, check out our video below:
And don’t forget to view the rest of the images in this gallery where you can download your favorites to share with your friends and family.
Last but not least visit the Half Moon Sports Grill’s Facebook page or their latest events page to view the official images.
Enjoy!
“Can YOU Handle It” Pro Tennis Exhibition
On Saturday October 22, 2011, Gold Key Racquet Club in Phoenix, Arizona hosted a pro tennis exhibition featuring Brian Battistone, Trent Aaron, Nicolas Legros and Jason Gerardo.
Brian Battistone has a career high ranking of 88 on the ATP Tour dating back to 2010 but is better known for his volleyball-styled jump serve and his use of a two-handled tennis racquet. It was quite a treat for our local tennis fans to see him in action.
The exhibition format allowed him to partner with each of the other player in a fun match. Trent Aaron also regularly uses a two-handled tennis racquet and has also played on the pro tour. Nicolas Legros, originally from France, is currently the Assistant Tennis Coach at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix and is a former top 10-ranked NCAA Division player. Jason Gerardo, born and raised in Arizona, was a top ranked junior in the Southwest and is currently the Junior Tennis Director at Gold Key Racquet Club.
Brian Battistone uses a volleyball-styled jump serve where he jumps in on court, switches racquet hand in mid-air and hits the ball before landing on the court.
You can enjoy all the images from that special evening in the following gallery.
TALBOTURE 4.8
On April 30, 2011, Studio Laurent Photography & Design was hired to document Talboture 4.8, a collection of Bruce Talbot’s personal photographic works in a unique aspect of 4.8 at Clayton in the Park in Scottsdale, AZ. Bruce Talbot is a well-known commercial and fashion photographer and this was his latest exhibition. The host for the evening was Tanisha Harper from Project Runway.
More information about Bruce Talbot and this exhibition can be found at: http://www.talboture.com/
Additional images of the evening can be seen via the StudioLaurent website at:
http://tinyurl.com/4x62ffg
Gold Key Racquet Club 20th Anniversary
This past Saturday April 2, 2011, the Talbot family celebrated 20 years of ownership at Gold Key Racquet Club in Phoenix, Arizona. The celebration began at 4 pm with a Mixed Up Tennis Social, which included some of the club’s former pros as well as the current staff. There was also a dedicated carnival court just for kids that included mini tennis, tennis games and a bouncy house. Following the tennis social was a Pro Doubles exhibition with all the pros rotating in.
After the exhibition, Master Chef Clay Cox presented dinner with carefully smoked beef brisket and chicken cooked on the barbecue. The celebration continued late into the night with the wonderful voice and music of Jeordie & The Mixology Project who performed by the pool.
Images from this wonderful celebration can be seen on the Studio Laurent website or by clicking HERE. Don’t forget to also check out a couple of the videos below!
Sun City West Family Session: Sanja, Amil and Adian
I almost felt like I knew this family before I met them. We had been conversing for months via email and finally managed to pick a date convenient for everyone to take the family pictures in late October. I traveled to their side of town which turned out to be the perfect location for our purpose. Beautiful green lawn that’s hard to find in Arizona, tall trees, dramatic waterfalls and a gorgeous lake which offered the perfect setting for a wonderful photo session. Like most of my photo sessions, this one was a really fun and loving session… Look how Adian and his Dad enjoyed playing in that green grass!… Can you tell they had fun???
2010 Half Moon’s Halloween Costume Parties
This year, the Half Moon Sports Grill held a Halloween party at each of their Phoenix location. Friday October 29th was at the Highland location in Central Phoenix and then they did it again on Saturday October 30th at the Greenway location in North Phoenix. Studio Laurent was there to capture both events on camera… What a busy but fun weekend!!!
Both parties saw a great crowd with some very interesting costumes to say the least, many folks went all out and put a lot of thought into their costumes. The costume contests held at each locations were both wild and loud as prizes were awarded on the basis of cheering decibels!!… Images will soon be viewable on the Half Moon Sports Grill website and as usual you will also be able to order prints and downloads of your favorite images via the StudioLaurent.com website or directly from the Half Moon Greenway or Highland image galleries. Also don’t forget to visit the Half Moon Sports Grill Facebook page to become a fan and stay in touch for future events and specials!
Weekend in Serbia with Vesna and Bojan
I traveled to Serbia this past weekend!!!… Well not physically but I truly felt like I was in good old Europe for a day. In one of the few european country that I have never visited. Saturday October 9th, while being my birthday, was also the much anticipated wedding day of Vesna and Bojan. Their wedding was definitely an experience to remember, similar to the adventure of traveling to an unknown country with a language totally foreign to me… and I loved every minute of it!!!
The wedding was amazing and filled with joy, love, traditions, LOTS of food and LOTS of music, singing and dancing among friends and family. This was much more than a simple wedding, this was truly the merging of two families in the purest of european traditions. There were so many events throughout the day between the families that lead to the wedding ceremony and then afterward during the reception as well. This was an obvious case of the families welcoming one another. I am multilingual with a lot of international experience but I do not speak of word of Serbian, even after about 10 hours spent in a Serbian-only speaking environment!!!… However I could definitely feel the welcoming and the love that these two families were offering each other.
Vesna and Bojan had warned me when we first discussed their wedding plans and I photographed their engagement session in April that their wedding would be nothing like I ever experienced before… and they were right!… Over 350 guests were in attendance, the reception was filled with traditional Serbian food, music and dancing until late in the night… And I barely heard any English spoken throughout the day… I loved it!!… I just let my cameras speak for me and there were no communication problems whatsoever!
Below are a few of the many images from this wonderful wedding… More pictures can be seen and prints ordered via Pictage by clicking here. Also don’t miss the slideshow at the bottom of this post!
Extreme Tennis Clinic “Movement on the baseline”
The 2010-2011 season of Extreme Tennis Clinics began last Saturday October 2, 2010 at Gold Key Racquet Club in Phoenix (Arizona) under a very unseasonal extreme heat. Mardi and Kristy provided their usual amazing and greatly appreciated teaching styles and everyone enjoyed some extreme tennis while learning about “movement on the baseline” as part of the Nick Bollettieri’s footwork series.
Among the topics addressed were:
- Return of serve movement
- During the point movement for both singles and doubles
- After serving movement
- Footwork movement for wide balls
- Deep ball movement
Additional images from this tennis clinic are now available for viewing by clicking here
If you are in the Phoenix area and would like to participate in any of the future clinics, please visit the Extreme Tennis Clinics site for more information and registration.
Scott Kelby’s Third Annual Worldwide Photo Walk in Laguna Beach, CA
Last Saturday, July 24th 2010, was Scott Kelby’s 3rd annual Worldwide Photo Walk, which I attended with 9 other photographers in Laguna Beach, CA (and 33,485 from around the world) on a perfect Southern California late afternoon.
One of the cool things about a photo walk is hanging out with people who have a common interest in photography and the ability to share ideas, tips and advice while discovering a neighborhood. Because of the small number of photographers in our group (our walk was one of the last one added to the program), it allowed us to get to know each other better and definitely enhanced communication among us. Photos from our group can be viewed here while the full pool of Worldwide Photo Walk photos can be found here.
We started our walk on the boardwalk at the main beach in front of the Laguna Beach lifeguard tower and looped around town before coming back to the beach just in time for a perfect California beach sunset.
You can view more of my photography from the photowalk by clicking here or purchase prints from this event by visiting this page.
