Lethbridge Weddings & Portrait Photography by Tanya Plonka

This year was a time of huge change for Erin and Ross. At the same time they welcomed their new baby girl into their home, their beloved dog Lazer received a disappointing diagnosis from his vet. Lazer has been with them for years so he was like their first child before the kids arrived. They wanted to make sure their kids would remember what an important part of the family he was, so he became the centre point of their newborn family photos.

Newborn Mae was, of course, the other focus! Mae had arrived home only a few days before and had quickly settled in. She calmly slept through all of the noise and commotion of photos, including a very curious cat (we tried to get the kitty in the family photos, but she was not having it!) and her older brother loudly watching the Lion King. Big brother Kieran did great through photos and loved posing with his sister. This was his first time getting to hold her because he had just gotten over his cold. The Lion King was a great reward for his awesome modelling!

Lazer also did fantastic and loved snuggling with his family, though he was confused as to why he was suddenly allowed on the couch!

This year I decided to highlight all of the 2020 Lethbridge PAW Society calendar cats in one big post, rather than a bunch of smaller blogs that I tend to forget to share on social media! Lots of kitties ahead!

This year’s calendar had a sports theme so I focused on getting action shots of any cats who had the energy and a favourite toy. We had some hilarious results! Whether thanks to a piece of string or a good hit of catnip, some of these cats went wild for their playtime!

All kitties are adoption success stories from the Lethbridge PAW Society and were photographed in their loving forever homes.

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 wonderful when Santa Paws comes to town! We continued our new annual tradition of pet photos with Santa at the Bone & Biscuit location in Crossings in west Lethbridge. This year we raised $700 for Misty Creek Dog Rescue!

We had a few repeat visitors from last year, plus lots of new whiskered faces. Our smallest visitor was Buttons the hamster, while our largest (and by far the most terrified) was the Great Dane puppy. We only had one hissing cat (pictured below), one crying child (also pictured below), and one potty accident (fortunately NOT pictured below).

Thank you to everyone who came to visit Santa and support this great cause!

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! :)

What’s better than one adoptable puppy? Two, of course! Bean and Belle are a doggy brother and sister duo who took a fun trip with their foster mom to Henderson Lake for their adoption photos. The two most enjoyed munching on leaves, especially Belle who was hard to catch without a mouthful! (Bean, on the other hand, was more into pine cones once he discovered those.)

Belle stood out the most for her sweet, soulful eyes, while Bean’s spunky personality and giant paws gave a glimpse into the energetic big boy he’s going to become.

Bean and Belle were photographed for the Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society (AARCS), but were no longer listed only a few weeks after I met them. They must be bringing so much joy to their new families!