Lethbridge Weddings & Portrait Photography by Tanya Plonka

After one year off, Ammena Dance Company is back!

It was so fun to return to poster design brainstorming with her. With a number of Beyonce songs in the show this year, we were inspired by both a classic European feel as well as the aesthetics from the music video for Formation. Donning a very Beyonce-inspired wide brimmed hat that will be used in one of the pieces, we explored downtown Lethbridge around her new studio location. We were very generously given access to a private property that made it onto the final poster, and had been exactly the feel we were going for.

This year’s show will feature Bollywood, tango, bellydance, burlesque, The Greatest Showman, Footloose and more, so please come check it out! There will be lots of themes of starting anew :)

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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!

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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!

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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!

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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!

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April, Ross, and their two boys brought their love of Halloween into their Indian Battle Park fall family photography session. I asked them to bring along a few props and was delighted with the results! The amazing pumpkin was made by April, and since the Michael mask fit her the best, mom had the honour of being the creepy one lurking in their photos. (April revealed she had the hugest grin during those photos, which you absolutely cannot see!). This family is so theatrical, making them a blast to work with.

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