Lethbridge Portrait & Wedding Photography & Design by Tanya Plonka

This Halloween, Andrew Suderman was gracious enough to let me second-shoot for him for this really unique wedding! Doug and Kristine combined the chilly autumn weather with some excellent Halloween elements, which was right up my alley :)

I had Andrew assist me earlier this year, so it was cool to switch the roles. He’s a super awesome up and coming photographer in town, so make sure you check out his Flickr page!

Doug and Kris started with a “regular” wedding (well, regular but with Halloween decorations) in the German Canadian Club, and then we went outside for family photos. Unfortunately the wind was a chilly 80km/hr that day, so we weren’t able to stay outside for very long! Andrew set up his lights inside, so I wandered around capturing all the neat little details they had arranged in the hall.

After the lunch reception (they had an early wedding), we drove out to Stirling to go to the renown Haunted House! We were instructed that we could take photos inside, as long as they looked “creepy.” I am so glad Andrew had a flashlight in his gear bag so we could focus our cameras on them! And I have to admit, I was a very bad second shooter and totally hijacked that portion of the shoot! ;)

Their second, evening reception saw all the guests return in Halloween costumes. So much fun! (more…)

Last week GS Lakie middle school and LA Dance company put on a fantastic dance show, Rush Dance Montage, with all of their students at the Yates Memorial Centre. Music students of the school opened the show with each of their rock bands while the crowd filled the auditorium (I wish my school had had a rock program!), and this was a first performance for many of them but they did so great! They were followed by an hour of super impressive dancing, with dancers ranging in age from teeny tiny (3 or 4) to adults. The show had such diversity, covering hip hop, lyrical, Latin, Afro-Caribbean, contemporary, Irish, etc etc. My favorites were the Bollywood piece (naturally) and the Michael Jackson tribute. There are a ton of talented dancers in this city! I really wish the show had been much longer than an hour! Kristi did such a fantastic job putting this together :) (more…)

Pilot Speed (formerly Pilate) recently returned to Lethbridge to play at Henotic and played an absolutely breathtaking show, as they always do. The crowd was unfortunately small, but completely wrapped up in the gorgeous music these guys made. I usually forget how great their music is until I hear them live, and then I get really addicted to them for a few weeks after. This is another band you should definitely check out! (more…)

Between having the flu and being super busy, I’ve been pretty neglectful of this blog lately! These photos are from waaaaay back in September, so you can expect a few more concert posts on the way.

Anyhow, these guys are called Zeus, and they are really cool! You should check them out! (more…)

I’m a little late on posting these, but last month I did some band shots for the JPS Trio. I wanted to include in this post that they were filming a video at Henotic tonight, but sadly it was canceled due to one member catching “that thing that’s going around.” Ugh oh!
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This last very beautiful Saturday I got to shoot the wedding of Eric and Chelsey (Julie’s bridesmaid) and had such a great time…. I anticipated it would be so much fun, and I was not let down at all! These two are young, totally in love, and (my personal favorite) a little bit silly, which all amounted to such great moments for me to capture! We worked super fast to fit in all the wonderful ideas we had, and ran totally on time all day – they even had time for a few spins on the ferris wheel!

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