Lethbridge Portrait & Wedding Photography & Design by Tanya Plonka

I always love working with this family! The entire family came together – all four brothers, their families, the parents, and even an uncle – over the long weekend in Waterton Lakes National Park, and I met up with them on Sunday to get photos of everyone together. The little boys are a lot taller since I last saw them, but sadly not as smiley this time since Hayden was recovering from a fever, and after pulling on Carson’s eyelid as soon as we started, they didn’t enjoy being near each other very much!

Waterton was kind of crazy (I guess I’ve never been there on a long weekend before) so we were limited with locations and couldn’t drive anywhere else, but we found a few awesome spots behind their cabin.

It’s been so fun to watch this family grow, and now with a new baby on the way and an engagement (that happened right before I showed up!) it’s getting even bigger! And now onto even more blue eyes than before… (more…)

Two mountain weddings in a row, I’m in heaven! :)

I first met Amy when we both took New Media in university, but she was a year ahead of me so I never really got to know her. Thanks to the wonders of Facebook, though, we were able to keep in touch later, and I was so excited when she chose me to photograph her wedding! Her and Andrew live very close to Waterton, so they decided that would be the perfect location to have their wedding. They kept it very small and intimate with only their parents, her grandmothers, and their “baby,” Beans the dog, in attendance at the ceremony; after we were done photos, they had a small reception in town for their extended family.

What a perfect wedding! We all met on the main road, then headed towards Red Rock Canyon where we pulled over and did a small hike to a field of wildflowers. From that spot, we were surrounded by mountains and couldn’t even see a peak of any of the roads. It was such a romantic location.

Amy was up for anything for photos, and was luckily able to talk Andrew into the same! We had no trouble keeping up with each other, and I was thrilled by all the things she was willing and wanted to do for photos :)
It’s hard to top a rock climbing, canoe rowing bride!

I was assisted by my buddy Sarah, who luckily happened to be back in town from Kamloops that day. (more…)

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!

Amy and Tim got married in gorgeous Waterton, and incorporated their dogs into the bridal party. It was a beautiful day and went by way too fast, so I spent another hour wandering around the park after we were done. Luckily, no one was attacked by deer, though we sure encountered a lot of them. (more…)

Again we are going back to August with this one! Michael Warf invited me along to second shoot Jon and Dana’s wedding in scenic Waterton, and I had such an amazing time! We were with them all day, right through to the party. Together with their bridal party they were a TON of fun – most of them knew each other from film school, and well, I like film school kinds of people :)

In keeping with that theme, Michael arranged a photo shoot in the old movie theatre in Waterton, and it couldn’t have been more perfect for those two.

Plus, these two were sooooo crazy in love. Dana’s gorgeous doe eyes were always oozing with adoration; I know “oozing” isn’t a very romantic word, but I can’t think of anything more descriptive of it!

I had trouble narrowing these down because we did so many things throughout the day, so these might take a little while to load :)

First though, a tale of my brush with nature! When I first arrived in Waterton, I had about an hour before I needed to meet Michael and his assistant Brien, so I grabbed a wrap from Subway and found a bench overlooking the lake. The deer in the area are very conditioned to all the tourists, so they graze quite close to humans throughout the town. As I sat there eating my lunch, a group of three does wandered by me, munching on the grass. Soon one turned around and started walking towards me. “It’s getting awfully close!” I thought, assuming it would stop at a certain point… but NO, before I knew what happened I was holding my wrap away from the deer’s grasp while having my cheek nuzzled! After realizing it would not be able to share any honey mustard goodness, it backed off and went back to finding stray leaves. Unfortunately, all the nearby people were too busy gawking at the sight to take a photo of it! You’ll have to take my word for it… I’m like Snow White!

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