Lethbridge Weddings & Portrait Photography by Tanya Plonka

The year before, T and his sister surprised their parents with family photos. During the session, they lamented that they didn’t bring any of his Tae Kwon Do gear to celebrate the fact he was now a black belt!

The time finally come to focus on all of his accomplishments when he graduated from college.

We started out with some cap and gown convocation photos in Indian Battle Park, as well as some more casual pictures without the grad formal wear on. Then it was time to show off his Tae Kwon Do skills! We headed downtown to somewhere with enough space to go through his patterns plus some different levels to show off his other various skills. (It should come as no surprise he also dabbles in parkour.)

T is already teaching this martial art in youth classes and hopes to one day be a teacher now that he has focused his schooling on physical education. Judging by the skills he showed off during his photoshoot, he should have no trouble achieving his goals!

It’s not every day I get to take Lethbridge professional wrestling photos, but this summer I found myself capturing the promotional photos for local wrestler Kenn Stevens. (This is such new ground for me that I’m not even sure what category to put this under on my blog!) Lethbridge may not have a big wrestling scene, but Kenn is the now the third person I know who takes part in this amazing form of entertainment! I have a couple friends who retired from the sport some time again so I’m glad to see it alive and doing well in new wrestlers.

Last winter, Denise and Craig had an awesome idea to do Coalhurst outdoor ice rink hockey photos, but there was no snow! Winter kind of skipped us that year. Luckily (for their concept, not local travellers), 2018 was the year of snow! The ice rink was well maintained and surrounded by heaps snow, perfect for the winter look they wanted. They put on their favorite Oilers jerseys, grabbed their hockey sticks, and set out onto the ice for their couples photoshoot.

Their cute little dogs Sadie and Piper came equipped with their own matching jerseys. It was their first time “skating” and they did surprisingly well! I think their low centers of gravity definitely helped. The only challenge was figuring out how to run on the ice, but the snow banks surrounding the rink made that part a little easier. Piper especially loved sliding down the packed snow.

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As I previously mentioned, last year I had a contract with the City of Lethbridge to take photographs for their new website. I had a great time always being on the look out for photo opportunities, and wanted to post my favorites, by season, throughout this next year! These aren’t necessarily photos they chose, but these are definitely the ones I liked best and wanted to share.

Even though it’s currently spring, the weather seems to say otherwise so I’ll start out with all of the snowy photos, some of which were taken in April anyhow ;) (more…)

Trevor has recently purchased a pretty intense pogo stick, so we’ve spent some time at lunch this week photographing his up and coming skill! Warf brought his Alien Bee and found a very long extension cord, and we worked Trevor to the point of exhaustion – apparently these pogo sticks are a lot of work!

Mike, the athlete that he is, made sure to take his turn on the pogo stick too.

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On Sunday I got to partake in one of the most exciting shoots I’ve ever done! A group of photographers made up of Lethbridge folk and Calgary Strobists got together with the U of L swimming team, a group of models, a fashion designer (Caitlin Power), a makeup artist, and a scuba diver (Chris) for what can only be described as epic. Michael Warf, Kevin Logan, Cody Belter, and I split off to do head shots of the swimmers while the other photogs set up for the fashion shoot, and then we all headed to the dive take window to take part. All the models and swim team must really be commended for the great work they did… their jobs were not easy!

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