Lethbridge Portrait & Wedding Photography & Design by Tanya Plonka

Kayli graduated high school in Bow Island this weekend and I joined her for a few hours to take photos of her in her dress with her family and her boyfriend Taylor. And what a dress! I might be biased because my favorite color is purple, but it was pretty awesome :)

It was so fun to do photos in a brand new place and I always love doing photos in small towns because you can find some great old buildings with lots of character. Almost all of the photos were taken right downtown! Kayli also found a great old farm house for us to use, and I’m thrilled she was so dedicated to the art… we had to carefully step over a LOT of cow poop to do photos in there! She was so fun and laid back, making my ideas super easy to pull off. Aside from the mosquitoes (and Taylor and Kayli having to constantly slap them off each other), we had a beautiful day and the rain held back just long enough. (more…)

They even wrapped it nice :)

Earlier this month I was contacted by a medical company based out of Maryland to take some photographs for a feature they were doing in their annual report on one of their patient success stories. When I arrived for the session the next day, I was instantly aware that Cassidy and her mom Sonya were such genuinely nice, generous people. They were surprised to have received the phone call from the company for this story, so we joked that maybe it was all an elaborate April Fool’s joke ;)

I loved capturing the special relationship between Cassidy and her mom. There was so much love and connection between them. They are both amazing people and it was a pleasure to work with them. My contacts in the medical company were also a delight to work with and were so pleasant I even looked forward to their emails!

More photos of Cassidy and Sonya after the jump: (more…)

The concept for this photo shoot has been rotting (har har) away in my brain since January. During the winter I couldn’t stop listening to Dead Man’s Bones – that’s Ryan Gosling’s band, by the way – and was in love with the eerie, ethereal visions and ideas that popped into my head when I was listening to it. Finally this took shape, and I knew Marie and a white dress would be perfect, but I had to patiently wait for the snow to melt and the ground to warm up so that having her out there in bare feet wouldn’t be too torturous. Marie was as amazing as last time, and I gave her an even harder workout than when I had made her jump across dirt roads repeatedly.

Normally for personal work I do zombies, so I guess I just can’t step outside of the supernatural ;)

p.s. Only one photo is a composite. Can you guess which one? (more…)

I have taken dreadfully long to post these! I wanted to give them proper attention, but constantly could never find enough time. Last spring, Beth shaved her head for a cancer fundraiser and wanted to do a few fun photo shoots while she was bald. We decided we needed to do body painting! Sarah volunteered her painting skills; normally she does face painting, so this was a bit of a stretch for her!

During Beth’s three hour makeup session, I freaked out a little at the pouring rain that wouldn’t stop, but luckily the last few drops fell as we drove to our location. I thought I found somewhere private enough, but for some reason everyone decided to go for nature walks in the rain that day, so we constantly either hid Beth in the vegetation, or paused to answer very curious questions from the people passing by.

As usual, Beth was an awesome model and her rock climbing skills really came in handy in her portrayal of what we decided was the “Beth Monster” (I would have fallen out of the trees if I tried to pose like her). Also, thank you to Sarah for the amazing painting job!

Model: Beth
Makeup Artist: Sarah Christensen

NSFW due to [painted] nipples (more…)

Sarah is a fiction author, and is getting published in 2012 so she needed a head shot for her picture in her book. How exciting! We did a full session at the Lethbridge Coast Hotel because she wanted a little something different than your typical author photo, and talk about an easy job for me! Look at how gorgeous she is, not to mention what a beaming smile she has.

Congrats on your accomplishment, Sarah! (more…)

I met Doug and Kristina last year (er, last last year!), and Kristina recently contacted me to do some blended family photos for them, Sue, and their little cuties Mason and Jakob. Despite both the boys being sick or getting over flus, they were in such good spirits and so patient and easy to work with. It was definitely an easy session to come back from vacation to :) (more…)