Lethbridge Weddings & Portrait Photography by Tanya Plonka

It’s always a joy to return to Tayler’s home near Taber and document her and her beloved animals year after year.

Tayler has exponentially increased her husbandry skills with the addition of her herd of little ponies (or a “string” of ponies if Google is correct!), many of whom are adorably named after Game of Thrones characters. Some of these proved to be more challenging to coerce into photos than the cats, while others lovingly followed us everywhere and photobombed us when it was supposed to be another pony’s turn.

Sadly Tayler lost her dog Summer last year, so the photo of her with her remaining dogs was super important. Autumn and Summer had been best buds and now Autumn is also getting up there in age, so we focused a little harder on playtime photos with her.

We had a little less time for photos of Tayler by herself this year after all our pony wrangling, but quickly snuck in some individual portraits each time she did a quick wardrobe change!

Thank you for trusting me with your photos year after year, Tayler! :)

Tyler booked her Lethbridge high school graduation portraits many months in advance so I’ve been looking forward to them quite some time! I love seeing the dresses graduates choose for their big day. This important article of clothing always shows so much personality.

Tyler’s photoshoot was a great trial run for her actual grad, giving her a chance to test out hair and makeup and break in her shoes. If you can walk in high heels over the soft ground of a park, walking inside a building should be a breeze! She chose such a gorgeous red dress for her grad with a high neck sparkly detail, open back, and leg slit on one side. It looked like a gown made for fancy cocktail parties!

We went to the park by the university and mostly managed to avoid the wind by hiding the in trees. Unfortunately our second location I picked out was not so sheltered! We worked quickly there as even the chair was blowing away if Tyler wasn’t holding it down :)

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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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I had an amazing time getting to know Krista from AcuPlus Wellness Clinic as we planned her business branding session. Krista wanted to bring more of a personal touch to her business’s online presence since her work is so focused on her relationships with her clients. We started in her home to capture the themes of healthy eating that she encourages of her clients, as well as her love of animals and nature. Her cats made special cameos in the photo session! We then headed to her clinic, which is a warm environment full of beautiful artwork, and finished with headshots in Indian Battle Park to again capture her love of nature.

Business branding is such a fantastic new trend in marketing because it supplies you with custom stock photography to tie your website and social media together for a cohesive brand experience. Each business and individual comes away with photography that is totally unique to what they offer their clients!

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This has been a few years in the making! I have been wanting to do photography that contrasts the human shape with architectural shapes. Lethbridge has some amazing architectural details, some of which are famous like the high level bridge while others are the neat little nooks downtown. For a long time I thought I wanted to do the photos with a ballet dancer, but soon started realizing we have such amazing yoga talent in our city. The project thus turned into urban Lethbridge yoga portraits!

It was a perfect fit to connect with Sarasponda Yoga and combine our visions for this project. Sarah is so talented at her yoga practice and I highly recommend taking classes from her. She completely rocked the vision I had and did amazing work while doing yoga poses barefoot on concrete and steel.

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