Lethbridge Weddings & Portrait Photography by Tanya Plonka

Bobbi-Jo and Ryan celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary last year and decided that would be a great time to update their family photos! Like most families, they started spacing out regular photos once their babies turned into bigger kids, so it’s been a few years since I last saw them. I can’t believe I’ve been photographing this family since their oldest was a baby. How did the kids all get so big??

Their warm autumn afternoon family session was a bit of a miracle after we had to move their photos around several times trying to avoid the snow that was on its way. This gorgeous sunny session took place mere hours before the blizzard moved in!

It was wonderful to catch up with them again and the boys had so much fun having races and climbing on the bridge in Indian Battle Park.

I love how vibrant Shelly’s colourful autumn portrait session turned out! Shelly and I planned her outfits ahead of time and I chose the best locations to compliment each one. Shelly looks amazing in bright yellow, so it was perfect for autumn.

Shelly’s family is overseas and with COVID hitting that year, it meant she didn’t get to see them as much as she would have liked. This session was planned as a gift to her mom so she could still see her daughter from afar, which I thought was so sweet!

Shelly is fairly new to Lethbridge after moving from Edmonton, so we made use of a few iconic Lethbridge features like the coulees. She has such a contagious smile and came ready for her photos after studying poses she wanted to use. (I don’t want to scare others away – normally you don’t have to worry about posing, I will do that for you!) It was great getting to know her for the hour session, and we luckily beat a huge rain storm by minutes!

Madison’s family chose a great day to have their session to take advantage of getting amazing colourful Lethbridge fall photos. The colours last fall were incredible!

It had been two years since I last saw them and Madison had gotten a lot taller since then, but still had her same adorable smile and charisma in front of the camera. She was a little shy to start, but quickly had a great time jumping around and getting piggy back rides from her parents.

Nicole and Cody had such a vivid fall family session with how amazing the colours were last autumn! Their photography session in Indian Battle Park allowed us to escape the wind and make use of the golden tones in the river bottom.

I had already photographed Nicole and her daughter on the fun mothers-daughters New York trip we went on, but this time the guys (including dog Coco) got to be included. I’m not sure they were as excited about it, but they did good for following Mom’s wishes for family photos!

Coco and the kids climbed whatever they could and were super excited to be out on our photo adventure. Nicole was happy to learn how easily I caught all the moments between the chaos ;)

With their oldest daughter starting her last year of high school, Abby and Tak decided it was finally time to update family photos while both girls were still home! The date they selected ended up giving us the most vibrant autumn family photos we could have hoped for. I cannot believe how colourful this last fall was!

We did all of the photos in the Helen Schuler Nature Reserve to escape the wind and every spot was so stunning. Celine and Sophie get along as great friends just as much as sisters (at least in front of me!). They’re definitely going to miss each other once college rolls around!

Samara’s mom and dad brought her down to the Lethbridge river bottom for her late summer outdoor newborn photos. I was loving all of these outdoor newborn sessions last year!

It was a beautiful hot evening so she was super comfortable, but we couldn’t let her cute bear ear sweater go to waste! We had to work quick with that outfit before she realized she wasn’t dressed for the weather.

Samara was happy all through her photo session. She made sure we got lots of photos of her bright blue eyes!