Lethbridge Portrait & Wedding Photography & Design by Tanya Plonka

Gallery updates… soon

Updating my website galleries with last year’s photos is a daunting task, but in the meantime I’ve put together a demo reel for weddings. (p.s. This is the style of slideshow that comes with certain wedding collections, and can be added on to any other collection.) It’s way more fun if you watch it full screen :)

Give a review and you can win!

I need your help getting some reviews on Google Places, and to thank you, one lucky person will receive a $125 gift certificate for photography.

All people who submit a review (including your name, so I can let you know if you win!) before February 28th will be entered into a random draw for the gift certificate, which can be used towards any portrait session fees or prints. You can also re-gift it to someone you like!

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Head over to my Google Places listing.

2. Just below the photos, click on “Sign in to rate” (you’ll need a Google account to submit a review, but you don’t need a Gmail address to have an account).

3. Leave a review including your name (you can skip last name if I can easily identify you otherwise).

4. Don’t worry if your review doesn’t show up immediately; Google takes a while to approve it.

Thank you in advance!

The Sun Times Best of the Best business contest is back for 2011! Once again, I would be so appreciative if you would vote for me under Best Photography Studio (which can be found in the Services section).

–> Click here to vote <--

(Like last year, I don’t think you need to be in Lethbridge to vote.)

Once again, thank you for your love! :)

This Thursday I’ll be giving a brief talk at the Lethbridge Photo Club on how to choose a website for your photography. I’ll cover the differences between doing it yourself, purchasing a template, and hiring a designer. I won’t be talking about how to make a website, but rather how to determine what is the best choice for your work and skill level (and wallet!).

Date: Thursday, September 16th
Time: 6:30pm (I’ll be on around 7pm)
Location: Lethbridge Public Library Theatre

If you’ve never been to the Photo Club before, they allow you in for free for your first meeting to check it out and see if you want to buy a membership or not.

Hope to see you there!

Woo hoo, I’ve finally redesigned www.tanyaplonka.com!

Improvements:

• Bigger photos (especially here on the blog!)
• Easier to find information
• Not as much filler
• Photos more recent than 2008!

It was so hard narrowing down photos for the galleries, and was painful to make some of the cuts I did. However, I’m so happy with the final result. I hope you like it!

www.waenvironmental.ca

WA Environmental Services was in terrible need of a new website; their old one hadn’t been updated since 2002, and they were too embarrassed to provide their web address to clients or use it in advertising! Timothy and Beverly Waters entrusted me to give their website a new feel. We included a blog section, Ask the Soil Doctor (Tim’s moniker), so if you have any questions about environmental site assessments or cleanups, drop him a line!

One weekend I accompanied them on a drilling job in Picture Butte to provide them with some up to date photography for the website (photos after the cut) (more…)

A little while ago I mentioned I had big news, and that news is: I am finally launching my own business (officially)!

I will be operating under Photography & Design by Tanya Plonka.

Essentially, I will be offering all the same services I have done all along!
-Portrait photography (individuals, couples, kids, families, bands, etc)
-Wedding photography
-Commercial photography
-Event photography (ie, dance, concerts)
-Website design
-Poster design
-Misc other print design
-Photo restoration
-Image manipulation & retouching

I was planning to hold off on this until my website redesign was finished, but I’m being indecisive so that will be a while yet! I’ll make a big announcement when the new site is up. I’m hoping to have it finished over the Christmas break, since I have no place that currently showcases my design work.

This news comes after Litwin Photography became too much for Hope to handle while she stayed at home with Jaxen, so they are bringing the business back into their home at a much smaller scale and closing the retail space.

I am choosing not have a studio at first, but will shoot anywhere on location. My goal is to keep my overhead down as much as possible, because I want to be able to offer people affordable photos during this bad economic time. I am still more pricey than, say, Sears or a just-turned hobbyist-to-”pro” photographer, but am trying really hard to stay below the costs expected from professional photographers. I come from a family with a limited budget who has always valued photography, so I find it important to allow nearly any family access to gorgeous keepsakes! I have different price points for everyone, from affordable prints to high end books and wall art pieces :)

All of my prices will be listed on my new site, but to give you an idea, sitting fees start at only $40, and my prints at $5!

Okay, /sales pitch.

I have been putting together my samples, and decided to do one of my albums based on the photos I took of Sarah with her horse Santana in 2007. Earlier this year I had looked back at them, and though I loved them more in content and emotion than the new ones of her with Theo (the red dress photos), I thought the quality just wasn’t as good.

Well, it turns out it’s just that my retouching skills have gotten a lot sharper this last year. I worked on the raw files, editing them from scratch, and I am so happy with the results! When it is finalized I will definitely share the album spreads, but for now here is the photo from the inside cover (a picture that didn’t even make my “final cut” the first time around):

Unfortunately getting everything set up, as well as adjusting to my new job at the University, is taking up a lot of my time, so I haven’t been editing personal photos, like the zombie pinups from earlier this year, or some cool Disneyland ones… but in time, I promise I’ll make more updates!

And if you know anyone who needs a wedding photographer for 2009, feel free to send them my way! I am already starting to book up, so it looks to be an exciting year.