Lethbridge Weddings & Portrait Photography by Tanya Plonka

It comes as no surprise with my passion for music that I love photographing musicians with their instruments! Julianna was prepping for her graduation recital and needed some photos with her violin, so we headed down to the river bottom in Lethbridge to capture some violin portraits. Her mom was also pretty excited to get some new photos of her daughter! ;)

Julianna was so photogenic (look at that smile!) and chose great outfits to fit with the golden early spring colors in Indian Battle Park. The subdued colors really accented the richness of the violin’s wood!
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Ammena Dance Company’s “An Explosion of World Dance and Music” 2015 is coming soon! Tickets will be on sale on February 3rd at the Yates Memorial Centre in Lethbridge and this year we are doing two shows again: Friday March 6th and Saturday March 7th!

We have a lot of black and red costumes in the show this year, including our awesome broadway tango finale piece, so it was important to get those colors into the poster. Plus, after saying we wouldn’t have a lot of props to dance with this year, Ammena Talhami brought in all kinds of goodies for us! Candles will be a big part of the show, so we covered the floor with them (which were much easier to clean up than rose petals!).

Because the setup wasn’t as complicated as last year, we got to sneak in a few extra non-poster photos as well :)

This year’s show will feature bellydance, Bollywood, dancehall, burlesque, tango, broadway, and more, so please come check it out!

Model, Wardrobe: Ammena Talhami
Makeup and Hair: Ammena Talhami
Concept, photography, design: Tanya Plonka

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Lethbridge has really been showing off its local talent with all of the great theatre we’ve had, and Evil Dead The Musical was definitely no exception! Put on a couple years ago, Hatrix Theater Company presented this popular musical at the Moose Hall over two weeks around Halloween and the actors and crew did an amazing job. They were very true to the musical, including three rows of Splatter Zone as the show rightfully should have. I had the fortune of being the official photographer and even from my “safe” location on the side wing, I still ended up with some fake blood splattered on me :)

I was so impressed I made sure to return to a second showing without my camera to take full advantage of the splatter zone. I’m pretty glad I wore goggles to the show!

Great work, everyone!

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I’m so very happy Matthew Good came back to Lethbridge on his Arrows of Desire tour! This time the show happened at Average Joe’s and he still had most of the same band as last time so they were even more tight than the last tour. It was a fantastic show and it was great to be up so close again. We were lucky the show even happened as the roads were bad enough to prevent the opening band from getting to Lethbridge, but the important act made it there :) (more…)

Canadian music legends Sloan recently came back to play Lethbridge and since it’s been 10 years since I’ve last seen them, I jumped at the chance! They are still as awesome as ever :) (more…)

Ammena Dance Company’s “An Explosion of World Dance and Music” 2013 will be taking place on Saturday March 2nd at the Yates Memorial Centre in Lethbridge.

Tickets will be on sale on February 5th and seeing as how they sold out within a week last year, make sure you pick yours up early! But don’t go until I get the tickets I need to pick up ;)

With Bollywood and Bhangra being back in a big way this year, our goal was to combine that with more of a burlesque style (another big feature of the show). However, when it came down to poster design, I wasn’t feeling that the Bhangra photos were blending in and just focused on the cute feather showgirl costume that was chosen!

Ammena did her own hair and makeup for the Bhangra photoshoot, and the super talented Jenn joined us the next evening to totally capture the classic showgirl look.

This year’s show is just as diverse as the others, featuring Afro-Cuban, Bollywood, Bhangra, dancehall, jazz, tap, and as usual, bellydance. Sadly I’m not doing a solo this year as I needed to focus on my own wedding planning, but I still found the time to be in four group pieces!

Model, Wardrobe: Ammena Talhami
Makeup Artist and Hair: Jennifer Murray
Concept, photography, design: Tanya Plonka

And hey, what’s that blue stuff?? (more…)