Lethbridge Weddings & Portrait Photography by Tanya Plonka

This year was a time of huge change for Erin and Ross. At the same time they welcomed their new baby girl into their home, their beloved dog Lazer received a disappointing diagnosis from his vet. Lazer has been with them for years so he was like their first child before the kids arrived. They wanted to make sure their kids would remember what an important part of the family he was, so he became the centre point of their newborn family photos.

Newborn Mae was, of course, the other focus! Mae had arrived home only a few days before and had quickly settled in. She calmly slept through all of the noise and commotion of photos, including a very curious cat (we tried to get the kitty in the family photos, but she was not having it!) and her older brother loudly watching the Lion King. Big brother Kieran did great through photos and loved posing with his sister. This was his first time getting to hold her because he had just gotten over his cold. The Lion King was a great reward for his awesome modelling!

Lazer also did fantastic and loved snuggling with his family, though he was confused as to why he was suddenly allowed on the couch!

Our unusually warm January last year continued to surprise us with morning rain before Bill and Sue’s portraits. We nearly moved things indoors but the sun came out just in time for their Indian Battle Park warm winter photo session. The ladies showed off their intense hiking skills by traversing the river bottom’s many puddles, ice sheets, and mud patches in high heels.

I appreciated how committed they were to the photos! The wind was cold and the sun kept vanishing, but their jackets repeatedly came off for the sake of the photos.

This session was a much needed update for the family, now that they have added a son-in-law to their children!

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It was another year of continuing our fun tradition of a family session with Melissa and Schuyer and their children! This year we switched things up again with Indian Battle Park fall photos, where it looks so beautiful in the autumn mornings. Melissa and Schuyler’s session was one of the few I didn’t need to reschedule due to snow this year. Last year they weren’t so lucky, so I was glad they scored a beautiful day this time!

Just days before the photoshoot, their youngest son Branegan decided he was truly a two year old and started exercising his independence. His siblings helped us out by leading him back when he’d run away, grabbing him in hugs, and distracting him long enough to stay in front of the camera. His most valuable item that day was his red comb that needed to be safely in his hands for all photos. Luckily it matched the clothing colour scheme his parents had picked out!

The kids got so excited when a slight breeze made the trees we were under rain down all their leaves. It was magical! (This was even enough to exchange a red comb for a leaf.) We did a lot of exploration in the river bottom and candid photos to keep their little brother distracted.

This winter I was given an amazing opportunity to travel to New York with Renae Peterson from Beautiful Inside Academy and Susanne Richard from The Travel Agent Next Door for the mother-daughter bonding trip they had organized.

We set out with 7 mother/daughter pairs, one grandmother, and 5 solo travellers. I loved photographing this super fun trip!

Part 2 of the year in review features the portrait side of things!

The most exciting part of 2019 is that it was my 10th full year of being in business and I ran a bunch of fun giveaways. I’ve met a few of the winners, and can’t wait to photograph the rest of them next year!

It’s definitely hard this year to keep this post to a reasonable size with all of the fun things that have been in front of my camera. The year started off with a couples photo session turned marriage proposal (she said yes!).

I was able to photograph a few amazing performances (Diva Cabaret, A Streetcar Named Desire) and had a ton of fun with athletic shots with a Tae Kwon Do blackbelt and local wrestler.

Pets were wonderful as always, with a cat helping announce the arrival of a new baby, and being able to celebrate Louis the dog’s 10th birthday party with a picnic.

2019 was also the year of family reunions and landmark birthdays! Thelma was the record holder this year, celebrating her 100th birthday. Groupings of 20+ family members were common this year, making any families of 10 people seem itty bitty.

Because I’m not busy enough already, 2019 was my first full year being a member of a local BNI chapter (I’m crazy enough to have taken on the Vice President role of our chapter in October). This has led to creating great relationships with other local business owners and being able to create marketing photographs for them. The highlight of being a member came at the end of the year when I was referred to join an amazing trip to New York as the group’s photographer.

I hope you enjoy looking through our best portraits of 2019 as much as I liked choosing them!

I love JJ and Shaun’s annual tradition of an autumn portrait session. As was a common theme this year, it took a few reschedules for us to escape the snow blizzards but we ended up with a beautiful evening and lots of vibrant orange colours remained. This year we went with Helen Schuler fall family photos. Each year they have me choose so I try to pick a different location, and we haven’t run out of new places yet!

Shaun’s career has him working for the railway so we made sure to get a few photos with the high level bridge, and spent the rest of our time exploring the nature reserve in the river bottom. Even though the girls are getting older, their energy hasn’t diminished and their antics (including asking their parents hilarious and inappropriate questions) had me laughing through the whole session.