Lethbridge Weddings & Portrait Photography by Tanya Plonka

This spring I got to meet a bunch of amazing students from the 2017 graduating class for their Calvin Christian High School grad photos. We started in the morning at the Norland Bed and Breakfast. I was impressed with how organized they all were, arriving in shifts so they could perfectly time hair and makeup around breakfast and their early graduation ceremony. The girls had such gorgeous, colourful dresses and every colour showed up at least once!

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While the tragedy of the local wildfires continued into the autumn, I wanted to turn the ashes into something beautiful and planned out more ideas in my post-apocalypse inspired series. David was kind enough to be on call for nearly two months while we waited for the unexpected early snow to dry up, and we found a perfect single day window of opportunity. We made use of the aftermath of one of the Lethbridge grass fires (this one had been started by an out of control camp fire during the summer).

David put together an amazing outfit and totally fit the part. He even came prepared with weapon and tool props! It’s not often you have a conversation like this…
Subject: I brought an axe.
Photographer: Oh good, I can save the hammer and meat tenderizer for another model.

I’m loving this series and I hope to keep it going! (You can check out the first post-apocalypse photoshoot with Jenn here!)

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I met up with Bert, his wife Geraldine, and their five beautiful children for his University of Lethbridge convocation photos immediately after his graduation ceremony finished. Bert’s family was buzzing with excitement over his accomplishment, and his sisters were so excited they couldn’t stop hugging him! To celebrate his achievement, we wandered around the U of L campus that afternoon for family portraits. It was such a beautiful day, though that’s not the kind of day you want to be wearing a heavy black robe ;)

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Corlin is a young, up and coming musician in Lethbridge and needed some portraits to use with his recordings. We set out downtown to get some creative head shots and brought along a keyboard as a prop. Corlin totally nailed these photos! :)

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I can’t believe how much he’s grown up! I first met Jarred for his family photos around 6 years ago, and now that he’s graduating high school, he’s gotten a little older! Jarred has become quite the model and was so photogenic I barely had to do any directing for his photos. His mom made sure to keep some distance from the photo shoot so she wouldn’t cry too much ;)

We started out our session in Galt Gardens on a beautiful, warm evening, then headed over to Casa for some indoor grad photos. The blues in Jarred’s suit (and socks) looked so great with all of our locations.

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I was originally contacted by Ray’s granddaughter who was looking for photos to celebrate a VERY special occasion: her grandfather’s 100th birthday! Ray is obviously an amazing man, and there’s no way you can tell his age by looking at him. He’s still so sharp and able! He may not have been keen on the original idea, but once we got out to the Galt Museum he was a wonderful model! (more…)