Lethbridge Weddings & Portrait Photography by Tanya Plonka

Part 2 of the year in review features the portrait side of things! This year marked a few firsts, including my first bunny session and my first family dressed in Batman costumes. I had so much fun with every group I worked with. Thank you for letting me bring your personalities out in your photo sessions!

This year for portraits I stayed pretty local in Lethbridge, but also took a few special trips to the Crowsnest Pass, Waterton, Claresholm, and Magrath. The yearend marks a very special occasion – the 10th anniversary of when I started my business! So many of the people in these photos have been with me for years and I couldn’t have made it this far without their love and support.

I hope you enjoy looking through our best portraits of 2018 as much as I liked choosing them!

(more…)

When Erica contacted me to do her 10th anniversary family photos, I thought it would be fun to dig up her and Bill’s wedding photos from a decade ago for comparison. This is one of the weddings I did before I had my own business so it was going way back! Some of the photos were a little embarrassing to look back on, but I loved seeing how much I’ve improved since then.

Some observations:
1. Crazy Cakes has always had that square hole in the wall. (I’d normally edit that out, but it’s cute to see the building hasn’t aged much!)
2. Ten years ago the Dutch angle was very popular in wedding photography and I had a lot of trouble pulling out old photos to recreate that didn’t make me dizzy with their tilt. Wikipedia says, “the Dutch angle is one of many cinematic techniques often used to portray psychological uneasiness or tension in the subject being filmed,” making me scratch my head as to how this was such a huge wedding photography trend!
3. Erica and Bill are just as in love as 10 years ago.

It’s amazing to see the happy family they’ve grown into. Their two boys are such joyful, energetic kids and had a blast finding new surfaces to jump off of throughout the photos. We started the session downtown to revisit a few of the locations we had used in their wedding photos. Next we headed to the Helen Schuler Nature Reserve so we could make giant piles of leaves for throwing. I think our success at having fun is directly related to how many leaves the boys had to pull out of their shirts when we were done!

(more…)

This summer I teamed up with a local organization to build up their image library with Lethbridge lifestyle photography. After running a model call on my website, several families were selected to take part in the project. I got to work with such a diverse group of people, from friends to past clients to some new faces! We ended up with so many natural and joyful images for the organization to choose from. Here are some of my favorites!

(more…)

I was so excited to hear from Ami-Marie when she got engaged to Devin. I’ve photographed her friends and family, and now I get to photograph her in love! Her and Devin love the fall (it’s when they are having their wedding too) and decided on Indian Battle Park autumn engagement photos while all of the amazing colours were out. We explored the Helen Schuler Nature Reserve for the first part of their session and then visited downtown Lethbridge, which was just as vibrant. Ami-Marie and Devin are so cute together, full of snuggling and laughter. I’ve been told that Devin will need to lose his beard soon for work, so I’m glad we were able to capture its glory in this engagement session!

(more…)

Isabelle and Andrew probably hadn’t quite planned on a smoky Indian Battle Park engagement session, but we worked with what we had! The smoke from the BC wild fires wasn’t too terrible that day and cast the High Level Bridge in a dreamy haze. They are both such kind people and could not be happier when they look at each other. It took no effort to make them giggle together and they snuck way more kisses in than I gave them permission for. ;) It was great to finally meet them after conversing from a distance and I can’t wait for their wedding next year!

(more…)

Lindsay and Terry love spending time outdoors, especially if it means visiting the Crowsnest Pass. Since their wedding is taking place in Lethbridge, they wanted to include this favorite destination of theirs in their engagement session instead. It’s always so tough to narrow down the scenic locations there! They decided on Lundbreck Falls autumn engagement photos, which was a perfect time of year as nearly all the tourists were gone. We got so lucky with the weather too! Despite a heavy snowfall warning, down below the mountains the fall landscape held on in gorgeous red and yellow tones. Only the mountain tops were dusted with a coating of snow to show the seasons colliding. Terry and Lindsay did an amazing job pretending it was warmer than it was (behind the scenes I was in a poofy parka!) and we were pleased to discover how much warmer it was at the base of the falls!

(more…)