Lethbridge Portrait & Wedding Photography & Design by Tanya Plonka

They even wrapped it nice :)

Earlier this month I was contacted by a medical company based out of Maryland to take some photographs for a feature they were doing in their annual report on one of their patient success stories. When I arrived for the session the next day, I was instantly aware that Cassidy and her mom Sonya were such genuinely nice, generous people. They were surprised to have received the phone call from the company for this story, so we joked that maybe it was all an elaborate April Fool’s joke ;)

I loved capturing the special relationship between Cassidy and her mom. There was so much love and connection between them. They are both amazing people and it was a pleasure to work with them. My contacts in the medical company were also a delight to work with and were so pleasant I even looked forward to their emails!

More photos of Cassidy and Sonya after the jump: (more…)

The concept for this photo shoot has been rotting (har har) away in my brain since January. During the winter I couldn’t stop listening to Dead Man’s Bones – that’s Ryan Gosling’s band, by the way – and was in love with the eerie, ethereal visions and ideas that popped into my head when I was listening to it. Finally this took shape, and I knew Marie and a white dress would be perfect, but I had to patiently wait for the snow to melt and the ground to warm up so that having her out there in bare feet wouldn’t be too torturous. Marie was as amazing as last time, and I gave her an even harder workout than when I had made her jump across dirt roads repeatedly.

Normally for personal work I do zombies, so I guess I just can’t step outside of the supernatural ;)

p.s. Only one photo is a composite. Can you guess which one? (more…)

Without further ado…

Last month, Greg and Tarah had a fairy tale wedding in the mountains at Lake Louise. They spent their entire weekend at the Fairmont Chateau, which was an absolutely beautiful, romantic, and perfect venue to get married.

I brought Jan along for the weekend, and on our drive up I was quite worried about the weather… the temperature that morning hit -50C (with wind chill)!!! It had warmed up a bit (-20C) by the time we arrived in Lake Louise in the afternoon, but as we scouted out our locations for the next day, our hands kept freezing up every ten minutes. We were SO lucky the next day because it warmed up so much! I would have been so heartbroken if we couldn’t spend much time out in the snow for photos.

Tarah and Greg perfected every detail of their wedding (and even took part in the reception decor and designing the cake!). Everywhere we went, little girls stared in awe, commenting to their moms that they just saw a snow princess. We had tourists following us all day, snapping photos of the couple. Obviously they were more beautiful than the scenery :) They oozed with love, they were gorgeous, and we had more backgrounds than we knew what to do with.

Everything was perfect all day, and I’ve never had so much trouble narrowing down photos as I have this time. I have to warn you now, this post is more photo heavy than any I’ve done before, so you might not want to look at it from your iPhone ;) (more…)

Amanda’s second baby is on the way soon, and she wanted to do a stylish photo shoot to celebrate! We turned her house in a mini-photo studio and she picked out an amazing, flattering wardrobe to show off her tummy. I’m also proud of her for balancing in her high heels because that can be challenging enough when you aren’t packing a little person along with you :) (more…)

Gallery updates… soon

Updating my website galleries with last year’s photos is a daunting task, but in the meantime I’ve put together a demo reel for weddings. (p.s. This is the style of slideshow that comes with certain wedding collections, and can be added on to any other collection.) It’s way more fun if you watch it full screen :)

Give a review and you can win!

I need your help getting some reviews on Google Places, and to thank you, one lucky person will receive a $125 gift certificate for photography.

All people who submit a review (including your name, so I can let you know if you win!) before February 28th will be entered into a random draw for the gift certificate, which can be used towards any portrait session fees or prints. You can also re-gift it to someone you like!

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Head over to my Google Places listing.

2. Just below the photos, click on “Sign in to rate” (you’ll need a Google account to submit a review, but you don’t need a Gmail address to have an account).

3. Leave a review including your name (you can skip last name if I can easily identify you otherwise).

4. Don’t worry if your review doesn’t show up immediately; Google takes a while to approve it.

Thank you in advance!

Last summer I second shot for Michael Warf a few times, and I’ve finally had a chance to go through what I captured and pick out some favorite frames!

The last wedding was Taryn and Jon, who had their ceremony in the Kinsman Park in a beautiful tent to keep all their guests cool. They also incorporated their little dog, and he even had a doggie tux! Their wedding party had a really personal touch by including Taryn’s mom and Jon’s dad in the members so they could enjoy the entire day with them. It wasn’t very difficult to make these two look good :) (more…)