You’re already thinking, “I want my daughter’s experience to feel like this.”
You found the dress. You’ve imagined the photographs. Maybe you’ve even saved a few ideas on your phone like a beautiful garden, the Chicago skyline, the Chicago’s iconic Union Station, an elegant stairway, a rancho, or somewhere that simply feels like her.
Then the questions start.
Where should we go?
Do we need a permit?
What time should we schedule the session?
What should we bring?
What happens if it rains?
And what are we actually supposed to do once we get there?
At RS Photography, we believe those are questions we should help you answer. Because your quinceañera photoshoot shouldn’t feel like another event you have to plan. It should feel like one of the experiences you get to enjoy.
Before Your Photoshoot, We Plan
Your photography experience begins long before we take the first photograph. We start with your vision.
Some quinceañeras dream about gardens and flowers. Others want the unmistakable feeling of downtown Chicago. The Chicago Riverwalk can give us the city, architecture and water. Chicago Union Station offers something completely different like the dramatic architecture and a timeless indoor setting.
And sometimes the perfect location isn’t in the city at all. Maybe it’s a rancho. Horses. Open land. A place that represents your family, your personality or the story you want your photographs to tell.
Our job isn’t to hand you a list of locations and tell you to figure it out. We help you find the setting that fits your vision. If a location requires us to make calls about photography permissions, permits or scheduling, we help handle those details.
Then we help coordinate the session itself. Because beautiful photographs are important. But so is everything that happens before them.
You’ll Know What to Expect Before You Arrive
There’s nothing relaxing about arriving at a photoshoot wondering if you forgot something. That’s why we prepare our families ahead of time.
Before your session, you’ll receive a written guide explaining what to expect, how to prepare and what you need to know to help the day run as seamlessly as possible.
We also talk through the details that can affect the experience.
The location.
The timing.
The dress.
The weather.
Photography restrictions at certain venues (i.e the use of certain flashes, lights, restricted areas).
And the little things you may not have known you needed to think about.
We don’t want you spending the night before your session searching Google for answers. We want you excited about tomorrow.
Then You Put on the Dress
This is where something changes. You’ve probably already worn the dress during fittings. You’ve seen yourself in the mirror. Your family has seen it. But this time is different.
This time, everything is ready. The dress is on. Hair and makeup are finished. You arrive at the location you chose together with us. And suddenly this thing your family has been planning for months starts to feel real.
You’re about to have your quinceañera photos taken.
For some girls, being in front of a professional camera feels completely natural. For others? Not so much. And that’s perfectly fine.
You don’t need to arrive knowing how to pose. You don’t need to practice what to do with your hands. You don’t need to know where to look. That’s our job.
We Don’t Expect You to Know How to Be a Model
One of the most important things we can give you during your session is time to get comfortable. We guide you. We look at how the dress moves. We pay attention to the location, the light and what’s happening around us. Sometimes we’ll create a carefully composed portrait.
Sometimes we’ll ask you to walk. Turn. Move the dress. Look toward the city. Or simply enjoy the moment.
And somewhere along the way, something usually happens. You stop thinking quite so much about the camera. That’s when we’re able to photograph more than the dress. We begin photographing you.
Your personality.
Your confidence.
Your excitement.
The little expressions your parents immediately recognize.
Those are often the photographs that become favorites.
And We Give the Session Room to Breathe
There is a reason we don’t want this experience squeezed between a ceremony, transportation, guests arriving and a reception timeline.
Your pre-quinceañera session gives us something incredibly valuable: time.
If we see something beautiful, we can explore it. If we find another corner of the location with incredible light, we can use it.
If you need a minute, you have one. There isn’t a room full of guests waiting for you to make your entrance.
There isn’t someone reminding you that you’re ten minutes behind schedule. For this part of your quinceañera experience, you get to simply be there.
And enjoy it.
What If Something Doesn’t Go According to Plan?
This is Chicago. Sometimes the weather has its own plans. Venues can also have photography restrictions, permit requirements and rules families may not know about. That’s part of why planning matters.
We help you understand the requirements of your chosen location before your session. And when circumstances mean plans need to change, we guide you through what happens next. Our goal isn’t to pretend that every detail will always go exactly according to plan. Our goal is for you not to have to figure everything out alone when it doesn’t.
That’s what your photography experience should feel like.
Then We Take It From Here
When the session ends, your part is finished for a while. Ours isn’t.
We take the photographs we’ve created together and begin the editing process. Then you’ll have another very important decision to make: Which one is the one?
The portrait you want professionally printed. The photograph you’ll see enlarged for the first time. The one that will eventually be displayed at the entrance to your celebration. Once you’ve selected it, we take care of what comes next and handle the professional printing and preparing your finished portrait so it’s ready for your quinceañera.
And weeks later, something that began as an idea becomes part of the celebration itself.
Your guests walk in. They see the flowers. The decorations. The room you’ve spent months planning. And there is your portrait.A photograph created during an afternoon when there was no rushing, no reception timeline and no crowd waiting. Just you, your dress, your family and this moment in your life.
That’s What the Photoshoot Is Really About
Yes, we’re going to create beautiful photographs. That’s expected. But we believe your experience getting those photographs matters, too.
You shouldn’t have to become a location scout, permit researcher, photography expert and scheduling coordinator just because you’re planning a quinceañera. That’s our job.
Our job is to guide you.
To prepare you.
To photograph you.
To take care of the details we can take off your plate.
And to make sure you know what comes next.
Because someday you’ll have the finished portrait. But you’ll also remember the day you put on your quinceañera dress, stepped in front of our cameras and realized: This is really happening.
Ready to Plan Your Quinceañera Photography Experience?
Tell us about your quinceañera. Tell us about the dress, the location you’ve been imagining and what you want your photographs to feel like. If you don’t know all of those answers yet, that’s okay.
We’ll help you with what comes next.
Contact RS Photography to begin planning your quinceañera photography experience.