Recently I was able to do Nixon’s first photo shoot. Meeting little Nixon was a real treat because his mom and dad like geeky things like I do! This was the first time I had to incorporate Thor’s hammer into newborn photos, and it hopefully won’t be the last, but I bet it probably will ;)

They are an adorable new family and had great senses of humor, so they were a joy to be around. Nixon wasn’t too pleased with us most of the time, but we were able to successfully trick him with his soother over and over!

“Please mimic Nixon’s expressions” turned into this :)

By Thor’s hammer!

This is the second installment of photos for the City of Lethbridge, featuring my favorite season, spring! (You can see the first post, winter, back here.)

Last year we had a beautiful spring with warm weather and tons of blossoms, so taking photos was a breeze! Though we had a number of cloudy days, there were enough blue skies to offset them.

I felt like spring really arrived once the birds came back.

You can see more of the bird photos in this post from last year.

They wanted to add a feature on their new website to show off the animals up for adoption at the city-run shelter. I got to go out and photograph some of the dogs and cats they were having the most trouble getting rid of, and thanks to a few feature photos, they were adopted within days!

This young dog kept barking in the other’s ear, while the other patiently listened.

This was Jackson – I loved him! Such expressive eyes!

The cats were tricky to photograph because we obviously couldn’t take them into the outdoor dog pen and had to stay in the little visitation room. They were so happy to have human contact that it was hard to pry them off of our legs!

I’ve posted this before, but it’s still one of my favorite images from last year.

The foal has a little jacket! Aw! Actually, it’s the wild mane that slays me here… :)

For once it didn’t rain, and the Lethbridge Annual MS Walk was a huge success! This was my first year involved as the official photographer and I had a great time. The participants raised a ton of money for MS research, the volunteers did an amazing job organizing the event, and everyone had a lot of fun. I’m so glad I got to take part!

Message for participants:
Please contact the MS Society directly to receive your team photo.

To view all the photos and order additional prints, you can view the proof gallery until July 28th.

Link: http://clients.tanyaplonka.com/cart/
Event Code: mswalk12

If ordering prints, please use promo code “mswalk12″ at checkout to receive 20% off any MS Walk prints.

And now, some of the highlights of the day!

Getting people warmed up

Thom couldn’t quite reach the draw bucket :)

Lethbridge Area Search and Rescue gave a fun demonstration with their rescue dogs.

This dog is still in training and needed some coaxing to do the jumps :)

Sisters Andrea and Lacey brought their families together for the Easter long weekend and had a big photo shoot to celebrate! All of the cousins got to play together and be hams in front of the camera and I had an awesome time with them.

The work I have been doing with AARCS has been so rewarding, and almost all of the dogs I have photographed were almost immediately placed in homes! However, there is one exception: Rodeo still needs to find her forever home. I first saw her in February when she was just a puppy, so now that she is a little bigger she needed some updated photos. She’s still pretty cute and little, but she’s gotten a lot taller and grown out of those awkward big puppy feet. Such a sweetie!

Here is her adoption page if you are interested. :)

Ready to go for a walk!

Paul and Erika picked a beautiful day to have their cute, intimate wedding (and they picked the BEST possible time of day to have their photos!). Only their parents and one of Erika’s friends were there to take part, and the couple surprised most of their family and friends with the news in the following days :)

They were amazing in front of the camera, which is funny because Paul did not enjoy having his photo taken one bit! Can you even tell? He joked through the whole thing and Erika egged him on just the right amount.

They also brought along their adorable dogs, the slender Olive and Fred the puppy, to take part in some of the photos. I love when people include their animals, and these ones were so well behaved!

After the photos, we went to Ric’s Grill where they had a private ceremony in the upstairs portion of the tower just as the sun was setting. Even though their event was small, it was very beautiful and I’m glad I was able to take part in it :)