This month's 2007 Liberty Award Winner Spotlight is with Sandy O Fergus, FlashART Ventures. Sandy O won her 2007 Liberty Award in Best Photography for "What a Hit"

This award recognizes a special event photographer for outstanding coverage of a public, social or corporate special event.

ISES Phila - What does your company do and what is your role?

• Sandy O - Flash Art Ventures is a very unique photo souvenir company. The FLASH artists are a team of vibrant personalitied individuals who dress in wild costumes, mingle with guests and take great photos. Each photograph is then hand decorated and transformed into a one of a kind memento for each guest to take home and enjoy. We shoot both digital and Polaroid photos and we offer other packages with our photos like "Pimp your Photo", "Flash for Kids" and documentary services. My role as the owner of the company is to market the company, book the jobs, make the costumes, assign artists to the right clients and to work jobs myself. I love this company and I enjoy the every day workings of it but mostly I enjoy getting dressed up and working an event. I wear many hats but I like the feathered ones the best.

ISES Phila - How long have you been in the industry and a part of ISES Phila?

• Sandy O - I have been in this industry since my college years. I started out working as an artist and photographer for the company that I now own. That was almost 20 years ago. Once I started going to all those cool events, I knew that I wanted to do events for a living. I started doing freelance artwork for event companies when I graduated from college many (more that I care to admit) years ago. I got involved with ISES about 10 years ago. I used to go to meetings but I didn't become a member until just 3 or 4 years ago.

ISES Phila - What is your role in ISES Phila and/or International Leadership?

• Sandy O - I have not had a significant role in ISES leadership. However, I do support the events that are held by providing services for the events once in a while. Just this year I volunteered to be on the Spirit of Excellence awards committee. I am hoping to get more involved with the organization because you get back what you put into it.

ISES Phila - What do you think is your favorite aspect of ISES?

• Sandy O - My favorite part of ISES is the relationships that I am making with people. Sure networking is where it all starts but what happens after that is that you start to work with the people you meet and then you start to develop relationships. You actually start to become friends with the people who you network and work with - then an allegiance is formed. Some outsiders say that ISES is cliquey... I do not totally agree, what is happening is that people form allegiances to other members of the organization because they know and respect their work and because they like each other. In the long run, it is a great thing because it is a win-win situation. The client is getting an awesome product because the supplier wants to do a great job for his/her friend, and the supplier does some of his/her best work because the client is now willing to budget the stuff into a proposal. That is my favorite part - it is people working together, teaming up and partnering.