Lethbridge Portrait & Wedding Photography & Design by Tanya Plonka

One of the highlights of my year for the past few years has been going to the annual WPPI (Wedding and Portrait Photographers International) Convention in Las Vegas, and this year was no exception. The morning after my big dance show I drove out to Montana (cheap flights!) then flew to Vegas, only to go to the convention the next morning at 7am! It was four days of intense classes and a killer tradeshow with few breaks, and I learned so much and came home with a notebook full of ideas. This was definitely the most informative year for me; finally, I was focused! Now onto the photos and stories… (more…)

On September 5th the city commemorated the centennial anniversary of our famous high level bridge by shining a bunch of bright lights on it. Though in person it was a bit of a disappointment, it gave every photographer in town an awesome subject :)

More after the jump…
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Two weeks ago I attended my very first Photoshop World, which was held in Boston MA. I was joined by co-worker and fellow photographer Michael Warf, and we had a phenomenal time! I learnt a huge amount at the convention, and our after hours shooting filled my portfolio with some wonderful things.

Naturally, on the slideshow above I had to pay homage to one of my all time favorite bands, the band who “saved” me from pop music, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Secretly I wished terribly to run into at least one member of the band while there… but sadly I don’t think they hang around Photoshop conventions!

Click below to go on to the photos!
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Here is a quick peak at the shoots I did while in Boston!

I have not taken a self-portrait I have been happy with in years, which has been nagging at me since it is ALL I used to do. My last night in the hotel proved to be productive!

How could I NOT use the most cliched song for this? ;)

I figured it would be a good idea to blog about WPPI 2009 in Las Vegas before I run off to Photoshop World in Boston next week!

This is a longer entry, so there are more after the cut!
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I really wanted to do a photo shoot when I went to Las Vegas, so I was thrilled to find out Erin would be there while I was, along with one of her sisters, Krista, and her mom, Verna. I photographed Erin’s wedding to Jonathan last summer with Litwin Photography, and will be shooting her sister Bethany’s wedding this upcoming summer (my last Litwin booking), so I’ve come to know the family quite well!

Verna didn’t want to be in the photos, but Krista was easy to talk into doing a few with her sister. In my limited location scouting time, I picked out the Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace as our location, and was really glad I did! In under an hour we shot outside AND on all three levels of that part of the mall, so we got tons of awesome shots.

Ideally, I would have kicked all the other people out of the area and gotten some cool photos on the spiral escalators, but well… maybe one day when I’m famous and have that sort of pull ;)

I was also really disappointed that no one else tried to jump into our photos like when Sarah and I did our shoot! I guess this time, we shot too early in the evening for passerbys to be drunk!

Thanks, girls, for being my models!

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