Lethbridge Portrait & Wedding Photography & Design by Tanya Plonka

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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I managed to find a bit of time in between all my dance practices to go through a few of my photos from Las Vegas in February, and the easiest to start with was Alan Thompson Jr.

(I used one of his recordings for the music on the slideshow.)

Alan used to play piano at Disneyland; hopefully if you visited the park during the three years he worked there, you had a chance to hear him on Main Street, because he was (in my opinion, at least) the best piano player they ever had! He was always able to attract a huge crowd with his playing, and even though he doesn’t work there, he is still legendary… guests are always asking the current piano players if he still plays there!

It’s been over a year since I heard him play in person (FAR too long), but I at least was able to visit with him on my trip. He made two day trips from California to Las Vegas, a nice little bookend to the WPPI convention!

He’s one of those people who doesn’t like having his photo taken, so I ended up with a lot of silly poses that “better not end up on the internet” (I guess they’re just for my own photo album), so I later on got stealthy and tried shooting him when he wasn’t paying attention. Am I a bad person for coercing people against their will into photoshoots? ;)

If you want to check out his mad playing skills, just search for “Alan Thompson piano” on YouTube! My favorite is Grim Grinning Ghosts; I taped that back when I hardly knew the guy. I’m just sorry it was taped from my lousy point and shoot that I still want to drive over… but it got the job done.

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I just wanted to leave a quick note to say I am featured this month on the Portuguese photography site Pontos de Vista for my zombie photos. Woot!

If you have some free time, dig around the site… there are some really cool photos on there! It’s addictive like Flickr!

(After March, you should be able to find my gallery from this link.)

Laura is expecting baby number two soon, so today we did her maternity photos with the rest of the family! I had a great time shooting this laid back, fun family, and am so impressed at little Nate’s modeling skills! (All this after he announced he wasn’t going to be in any photos just before I got there.)

I’m so happy I got to do this shot… I’ve been wanting to do it for a while!

This afternoon Ali, Ryan, and their new baby Tori came in to Lethbridge for Tori’s first baby photos. Tori is such a little sweetie, but we had to work quick because she’d get bored of whatever I was doing after 2 minutes and need something new! (I can relate, ha ha)

Just before I went to Vegas, I did a pre-wedding photo session with Joan and Erwin that was way more in depth than their engagement shoot. I was so sad to be away for their wedding (which Jan shot in my place) so this took the place of the bridal photos we would have done that day. They both looked gorgeous, and I was thankful for our indoor locations because it was a bit chilly outside! We started in the beautiful Galt Museum, then went to Henotic Restaurant.

I am so happy with how this session turned out; I think it is one of my favorites. I think I was feeling inspired that Vegas was only two days away when I shot this!

Again, I am excited by the slideshow!

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