Charity Gala/Auction

So I've been helping this Celebrity Auctioneer Paul now for several of his auctions. He always likes to have good photos for his website so he'll hire me to come along and grab pics of him doing his thing and mingling with celebs.

Last year this same event was hosted by Kelly Ripa.

This year it was at the same venue at Chelsea Piers. 

Paul is really entertaining to watch and always a huge hit with audience.

The event this year was hosted by Seth Meyers. He's soooo nice.

Mary J. Blige performed...

Mark Ruffalo was there...

As were Kelly and Mark.

They are so cute. I <3 br="" them.="">

They won a trip to Turks & Caicos.

LOVES Celebrity Auctions!

Charity Auction hosted by Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos

I've now shot a couple events for celebrity auctioneer Paul Zekos.

Paul hosts SUPER high-end auctions. Fun auctions where the prizes to be won include autographed football helmets, tickets to the Grammys or Oscars, American Idol finale tickets, super-luxe getaways. Etc etc.

The auction yesterday took place at Pier Sixty @ Chelsea Piers and benefited the Stephen Gaynor school.



In addition to the usual neato items...





They were also auctioning off artwork by children from the school.




The apps were amazing. My favorite were the bite-sized chicken parmesans.

YUM.



750 people or so attended the event. Tickets for the event were like $500 each.





Paul is a really talented auctioneer and jumps around on tables and really gets people laughing and bidding. He must have raised almost half a million dollars last night.




And it didn't hurt that the event was hosted by Kelly & Mark!



There was also a musical perforamance by Laura Bell Bundy, the star of Legally Blonde on Broadway.




Paul and I both work in lines of work where the number and caliber of the celebrities we work with has a somewhat dramatic effect on our business. So he and I were both equally excited to have new pictures of Kelly and Mark to add to our portfolios.



Welcome to my website, A-Listers!






Oh, and I launched a new website:

www.denniskwanevents.com

It's a lot of the same stuff as my weddings site, but I want to be able to do more fancy events like this and people who are hosting events like this don't necessarily want to see all wedding pictures when looking through my portfolio.

I'd love to do more red carpets and premieres and fun things like that. Woo!

Another Celebrity Auction!

Remember the celebrity auction I photographed a few months ago? The auctioneer guy liked me and is having me shoot his auction tonight. Last I talked to him, he said he had put out an ask for Scarlett Johansson to host. That may or may not happen. I hope it happens. We loves ScarJo.

The auction is going to be at Gotham Hall, same place where we saw Ne-Yo and Leona Lewis perform during that random Cognac party.

Celebrity Auction!

Cathleen and Carly are wonderful little Hoochies that work at Chelsea Piers.



They organized a fancy dinner/charity auction a couple of weeks or so ago and their friend who was the auctioneer needed a photographer to capture the event and some of its celebrity attendees, so in I went.



It was a big event.




The food was epic.




There was a musical performance by Bernadette Peters.



Lots of random fun things being auctioned, from Jonas Brothers memorabilia...



To a guitar signed by U2 complete with a pair of front row VIP meet-and-greet tickets...



(I think it sold for like $150,000 or something crazy.)

To other things like trips to Italy, Emmy award tickets, American Idol Finale tickets, etc etc.

They raised a lot of money.

Lots of random celebs were there, like Law & Order's BDWong.



And EdieFalco from Nurse Jackie and The Sopranos...



And U2's The Edge...



Does anyone know what you're supposed to call The Edge?

When I met him I was just like, "SO great to meet you Mister...um....The Edge..."

Super awkies. But I bet it happens to most people.

It was a really fun event!



Nice job organizing guys, and thanks for thinking of me!



I always love being able to partake in the fancy-ness, eat great food, meet celebrities, AND get paid!