Lethbridge Portrait & Wedding Photography & Design by Tanya Plonka

What a way to welcome in wedding season! Sarah and I joined Jonny and Gerda, their families, and their sharp dressed friends last week for their exceptionally fun wedding. Everyone was lively and so happy, and Gerda and Jonny are so cute together. I absolutely loved their stylish, unique choice of wardrobe for the bridal party. (Can you believe Jonny picked out the dresses?) The yellow was so striking everywhere we went, and the guys’ suits were absolutely classic (and a little gangster, which I love!).

We also lucked out with the weather. The week before their wedding, it kept snowing and raining, and the ground everywhere was white and muddy. I begged the snow the night before to melt before we set outside to do the formals, and it listened to me! We even found a lot of green space even though Lethbridge isn’t really in bloom yet. It’s all about faking it :)

I had such a great time with everyone and loved that these two wanted photos that reflected their youthful vibrant personalities… even if that meant climbing up on pool tables! (more…)

After both the family and I rescheduled our sessions thanks to cold after cold all winter, I was finally able to meet little Zosia! She is an absolutely cutie and has such striking blue eyes just like her big brother! She was very patient with us and in a great mood during the session, and when she finally got sick and tired of us changing and posing her, she quickly fell into such a dreamy peaceful sleep, which was also pretty darn cute :) (more…)

For something completely different than some of my last few blog posts, I joined baby Sierra’s family last weekend to capture all the important moments of her Baptism in Cranbrook. Though the crowd of guests were a little smaller than those who had attended parents Krista and Giacomo’s wedding a few years ago, family still came from as far away as Lethbridge and Red Deer for this important occassion. First of all, Sierra is an awesome baby because her birthday date is a palindrome! She’s also quite the cutie as you will see… (more…)

Jeremy contacted me with a top-secret plan: to surprise his girlfriend Phoebe with a sunset photography session at the location where they first met each other several months earlier. After much plotting, we decided he would make fake dinner plans with her that required her to dress nice and arrive in time for their “reservation,” while he arranged a bit of a detour to come meet me at the bridge. He did a fantastic job of keeping the secret, and she didn’t know what was going on until their car pulled up next to mine and he explained it to her!

I had a fantastic time working with the two of them (despite Jeremy’s bleeding “injury” on his ear) and we picked a perfect evening for the session. Phoebe especially had a fantastic smile the whole evening from the shock of the surprise! (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…)

Last year when I went to Vegas to attend WPPI, I was standing in line waiting for Jerry Ghionis’ platform class and started talking to the girl in front of me. What a small world it was; she was from Calgary! I hadn’t seen Stephanie since meeting her then, but we agreed we’d definitely get together in Vegas again this year (don’t worry, I’ll have a post coming about that soon enough!).

This year found her with a baby in her belly, so we decided some Vegas maternity photos were in order! The Vegas strip has a million fantastic photo locations that always get the gears in my head going, but I just couldn’t make it past the hallway to the convention center at MGM! The colorful walls called to me…

Stephanie was willing to strip down in front of all the other photographers walking by, and it was fun stopping for everyone who was chimping the back of my camera to see what we were up to! It was so much fun and challenging working in a totally different environment for maternity photos; usually I prefer to use a lot of natural light and give the photos more of a soft feel, but if you’ve been in any of the casinos in Vegas, you know they are very dark and very dramatic! My mom acted as my lighting assistant with my single strobe (I wanted to travel light – no pun intended), which made the shoot much easier, seeing as how I didn’t have a light stand with me ;)

Check out what a cutie Steph is… (more…)