Lethbridge Weddings & Portrait Photography by Tanya Plonka

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!

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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