Lethbridge Portrait & Wedding Photography & Design by Tanya Plonka

A couple months ago Cassandra came to me with a fantastic jungle gym she had found. You know how they are making all the playgrounds “safer” these days by ripping out the fun wooden ones and replacing them with “soft” plastic? Well, this one somehow made it through the approval process despite that!

Because of the cold weather we hadn’t been able to use it for a shoot until now, and even so we ended up with numb hands and barely finished before the local wind warning that evening kicked in!

Cassandra used to be a gymnast when she was younger, so she was the perfect model for this shoot. (more…)

I’m happy I can finally post these now that their mom has seen them! Just before Christmas Pam, Jamie, Stephanie, and Robyn got together for a photo shoot to surprise their mom with. I had an awesome time with these girls, especially because I used to taiko drum with Pam and her mom (back when I had more spare time!), and took a few drama classes with Jamie in university, so it was nice to see everyone again! These girls were a riot and it was so easy to get the most genuine bursts of laughter from them. Since it was pretty cold outside, like every day lately, we did the photos inside Lethbridge’s gorgeous Galt Museum before braving another couple minutes of photography outside in Galt Gardens. (more…)

Here is the poster I made for our upcoming bellydance dance show, A Night at the Harem! The two photos I used are by the lovely Jan Tajcnar.

If you’re in the Lethbridge area, check it out next Saturday!

Yesterday I had a really fun shoot with friends Michelle, Katie, and Cynthia, who haven’t been together in Lethbridge as a trio in six years! These girls were great to work with and awesome at making each other laugh :)
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Though Janae graduated some time ago, she never had photos done in her awesome blue dress… and better late than never! We spent a few gorgeous evening hours taking photos around town, and though she didn’t think she knew how to pose, she did a pretty good job following my directions :) After our nature-y stops we caught the amazing sunset, and faked some evening photos. This was such a great dress for her; it matched her eyes perfectly!

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In honor of the last wedding I shot with Michael, where he tried to buy balloons for the photos and the Lethbridge wind absolutely crushed that idea, I made another attempt at balloons in photos and this time it (sort of) worked! (Sure, balloons are the new “colorful old chair on the road” prop for photos, but I had to try them at least once!) Ayako was beautiful and easy to work with and I had a great time shooting her. It’s awesome that she found me, since we were in the last Lethbridge College fashion show together, but didn’t know each other at the time (a true indication of how small Lethbridge is!).

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