Lethbridge Portrait & Wedding Photography & Design by Tanya Plonka

While at the Estate Party at Photoshop World in Boston, Michael and I met Jodi, a graphic designer and model from Illinois, and luckily she was up for doing a photo shoot with us the next day! We chose to do a boudoir shoot with her at the hotel to show off all her great ink; this girl knows how to choose tattoo artists. I’d also like to point out that she is approaching 50, and look at her! I hope I age that well!

She brought along a wonderful selection of wigs for the shoot, but her real hawk was pretty fun too :)

Thanks so much for shooting with us Jodi, and thanks to Ian for assisting with lighting!

I kept this entry safe-for-work, so feel free to click:
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Yesterday I took part in a great collaborative fashion shoot at the Hotel Arts in downtown Calgary. Our team consisted of three photographers, three assistants, five models, two makeup artists, and one hair stylist/salon – as well as the Hotel management and staff themselves. Throughout the evening we broke off into our teams and worked with the gorgeous models, making use of the beautiful space in the hotel. It felt really rushed (I feel like I barely shot anything!) but I was definitely pleased with the results and with the great collaboration we had going on.

Special thanks to Michael Warf for organizing the bulk of this, Torin Segstro for being my lighting assistant, the Hotel Arts for having us, and to all the models (Mikyuki, Melissa, Elaina, Rydell, and Lacey)!

I’ll hopefully share more of the shots later, but for now here are my favorites:

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Today I had the pleasure of doing a photo session with a woman out of Edmonton who has a fantastic name: Tanya! Once you get over the awkward “Hi Tanya, this is Tanya” on the phone, you stop noticing :)

Tanya (her, not me) wanted to show that she’s a hot mama (and boy is she ever!) so she braved the chilly wind in her sexy blue dress. Luckily the sun popped out a few times, and we could keep her coat nearby when needed. Summer is soooo close, but needs to hurry up a bit more!

She has such an amazing, huge, sparkling white smile and is full of positive energy, so I had to snap quickly to get the more serious shots… but I definitely prefer the smiling ones :)

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!

Hoo boy, it seems a little strange posting photos of Kelsie in total white out when it’s finally warm outside, but sometimes I get a little behind in my personal work! I think the problem is that I hate winter. I hate winter a lot. During winter, I tried to be in denial that it was happening. Every time I’d open Lightroom and see these photos of Kelsie in the snow (and trust me, they came up a lot since we did them on New Years Day), I’d feel so cold and want summer, so I tried to pretend the photos weren’t there. Now that it’s officially spring, winter and I are kind of on speaking terms again. You know, like when you run into an ex and you say a polite hello, then continue on your way, but complain to your friends about it later? Winter and I are kind of like that right now.

Anyhow, Kelsie was as beautiful and sexy as always, and it wasn’t THAT cold compared the other days that week (a smokin’ hot -15C!) but cold enough I can definitely admire her for doing these. If it looks like she has dandruff, it’s just snow I got sick of Photoshopping out!

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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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