Lethbridge Portrait & Wedding Photography & Design by Tanya Plonka

With Starsha’s help, I’m here to school you on my boudoir sessions! :)

Boudoir sessions are an empowering way to feel good about your body and about who you are. Embrace your beauty! These sessions are for women of any shape, size, or age.

Don’t worry about being shy. We start with more clothing until you get a little more comfortable, and most women feel natural (and even like a model!) ten minutes into the session. Starsha was specifically recruited for the blog, but boudoir sessions are ones I do not publicly post. For most women, they are a very personal thing – whether for a significant other or just for yourself! You get to view your photos in a password protected gallery that is only visible by people with whom you share it. The boudoir photos you see in my website gallery are all carefully selected so as to not be too personal or revealing, and then permission is sought from the subject. Nothing will be in public eye without you first giving the okay. If you are totally thrilled and brave, let me know and I’d love to post your photos for other people to see!

Where do we do them? In your own home! This is where you feel most comfortable, and I can get the most natural, relaxed look from you in this kind of environment. Besides that, your home usually totally reflects who you are and that’s something to be embraced. These bright yellow walls? These photos were all done in Starsha’s little bedroom – which is so amazing, bright, colorful, and happy :) (more…)

It is finally time for another zombie pinup! This was the first one that made use of two lovely undead models: Karla, my first ever zombie, and Beth, whom I had met at the zombie walk this last year. We went with a bar wench theme, and Jesse from The Slice graciously donated the space for a couple hours that afternoon for us to cover the place in fake blood. Also a big thank you to Sarah who made their skin look delightfully gross, even though her proper stage makeup was out of town!

Models: Beth & Karla
Makeup: Sarah Christensen
Location: The Slice

Check out the rest… (more…)

It’s been a while, but here is my first zombie pinup of the year! Between the great locations, Starsha’s excellent modeling, and not having done one in a while, it was really hard to narrow these photos down!

Starsha has several pet cockroaches, and we made use of them for the last portion of the shoot. They are actually pretty laid back creepy crawlies, but when we would put them on her they would make a run for it. We ended up having to only use one so they didn’t get lost in the field (because that would just suck for EVERYONE), and I multiplied it afterward. If you are absolutely terrified of cockroaches, it is the last photo, so you are safe to scroll through the 16 that come before it.

When I first arranged this shoot with Starsha, Hope Litwin had recently done a little personal assignment, Project: Norma Jean, recreating Marilyn Monroe’s ballerina photo. I found out Starsha had an orange tu-tu, so Project: Zomba Jean was born…

(more…)

Last Saturday Lethbridge was graced by the Kabuki Guns Burlesque (KGB) dancers from Calgary who put on a stellar show at Henotic. I was excited to see this as my only burlesque encounters up to that point had been seeing Big John Bates and the Voodoo Dollz, but I knew there was a whole other world of burlesque out there I had yet to experience!

Just after the girls arrived in Lethbridge, they took some time for an awesome photoshoot with myself, Michael (for a brief while before family matters called), and the lovely Starsha who assisted with lighting (and she has a fantastic eye for detail, so she doubled as our stylist!). We started with the girls’ solo outfits, and I loved their fun costumes. Every costume totally reflected each girl’s personality… and I was especially thrilled when Princess Leia walked out…

[No nudity follows, but burlesque costumes may not be the most "safe for work" ;)]
(more…)

Finally, I can show a little more than my Hotel Arts teaser from a week ago!

We started the shoot by doing some promo photos for the Hotel’s lounge, Raw Bar, and then took to the gorgeous lobby areas to do fashion photography. The hotel was also gracious enough to lend us a room, so we had a chance to do boudoir work as well. I would have loved a two day shoot out of this as I ran out of time and was only able to extensively work with one of the models… At least it leaves more ideas for the next time!

There’s no full nudity in the photos, but if you’ll get in trouble looking at girls in corsets or barely covered in showers except for steam on the windows when you’re at work, make sure you only check these out when you’re in private!

I’d also like to point out I love doing boudoir work, so if you are interested, please contact me! I’ve been doing it for a while, but only recently with models, so I haven’t been able to show it off before these last few shoots!

(more…)

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:
(more…)