Lethbridge Weddings & Portrait Photography by Tanya Plonka

Leslie is happiest when it snows, so when her friend treated her to a headshot session as a Christmas gift, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect! We planned her Lethbridge winter headshot session at the very last minute (the snow was falling that night and would melt within two days) and headed over to Aperture Park on the west side with Leslie’s favourite winter coats in tow. Leslie is a talented author and a joy to be around, so I wanted to make sure her new book portraits matched her personality.

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Ray contacted me when he was in need of a men’s fashion portrait session to build up a talent portfolio for himself. We decided on the University of Lethbridge so that Ray could easily change between his different looks. I’m glad we did because it was COLD outside! Luckily one of his looks was made for the cold weather and we started the session with some winter fashion. Don’t let the autumn colors fool you – it had been snowing a few minutes earlier!

Ray is just getting started with modelling but he was already a natural in front of the camera. I think he’ll have a good career ahead of him!

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Tanya was in need of updated professional headshot photos and her house made a great studio! She collects artwork on her travels and it added such great pops of colour in the background. By the way, doesn’t she have a great name? ;) Even her dog Will got to update his headshots while he waited for her to switch outfits.

After her headshots, we finished the session with Lethbridge winter coulee pet photos. Tanya regularly goes cross country skiing with Will. There wasn’t quite enough snow at the edge of the coulees to actually put her skis on, but we brought them along to pose with.

One sign of a good photographer is being able to photograph black pets and still have details show. I think it is an entirely new challenge to photograph a white dog in the snow! In a few spots the snow was a little deep for Will but he had so much fun bounding through the powder!

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Each fall, Mishaela and her sister have their photos taken together for their parents to display in their home. This year marked a break in that tradition while Mishaela was away for school, but she couldn’t let her mother’s wall go empty! She surprised her parents for Christmas with beautiful Lethbridge autumn portraits of herself. I can’t believe the day we chose – Mishaela got the absolute best of the fall colors two days before the snow and wind knocked them all down!

To celebrate her time away at school, Mishaela incorporated props from her education into a few of the photos. Once in a while her stethoscope, textbooks, or flute would make an appearance. She chose just the right number of textbooks to be the perfect height to lean onto! Mishaela has such a positive, upbeat personality and was so much fun to work with.

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This spring I got to meet a bunch of amazing students from the 2017 graduating class for their Calvin Christian High School grad photos. We started in the morning at the Norland Bed and Breakfast. I was impressed with how organized they all were, arriving in shifts so they could perfectly time hair and makeup around breakfast and their early graduation ceremony. The girls had such gorgeous, colourful dresses and every colour showed up at least once!

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While the tragedy of the local wildfires continued into the autumn, I wanted to turn the ashes into something beautiful and planned out more ideas in my post-apocalypse inspired series. David was kind enough to be on call for nearly two months while we waited for the unexpected early snow to dry up, and we found a perfect single day window of opportunity. We made use of the aftermath of one of the Lethbridge grass fires (this one had been started by an out of control camp fire during the summer).

David put together an amazing outfit and totally fit the part. He even came prepared with weapon and tool props! It’s not often you have a conversation like this…
Subject: I brought an axe.
Photographer: Oh good, I can save the hammer and meat tenderizer for another model.

I’m loving this series and I hope to keep it going! (You can check out the first post-apocalypse photoshoot with Jenn here!)

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