Madelyn Palencia (Quinceanera Photographer, Washington DC)

I have to say one of my favorite subjects to photograph are Quinceaneras.
Quinceaneras (15 year olds) are little girls starting a new stage in their lives. They are becoming women and in the Latino culture this is celebrated by having a big party and having friends and family over and enjoy of the food, the music and the special dances that The Quinceanera and her freinds; Chambelanes & damas (more like groomsmen and brides maids) put together.
The Quinceanera dresses in a beautiful dress and to me is more like a dream come true for a lot of little girls who used to dress up and pretended to be princesses. Except at this stage of life, that little girl wearing a pretend outfit is now wearing a real princess dress and everyone treats her as such.

I am very glad I had the chance to photograph Madelyn Palencia whom I have known for a couple of years.I have known her dad ever since I can remember or better to say he's known me since I was born. He used to be my neighbor back in my home town in Honduras and was glad to see him and get to know his family after so many years. I had not seen Madelyn in about a year previous to our photo shoot and I was astonish of how much she has grown. She is definitely a beautiful young girl ready to be treated as a princess.

 We were brave enough to go to Union Station in Washington DC where there are people every where so it was amazing to be able to capture a few pics without anyone around. Actually people were very nice and when they saw me trying to take pictures they moved away and to a few I had to give them a bad eye of: can you please move out of the way so I can photograph this beautiful girl? and they did. Well it was actually a team effort with my assistant Andy Wing (Professional Photographer) and Madelyn's mom who was there to help us move signs out of the way.

Thanks everyone who made this photo shoot special and Thanks Madelyn for being such an amazing model and brave enough to do crazy stuff for me (such as standing in a place for 15 minutes, waiting for people to move out of the way).


Here are a few Pics and a slideshow video of all the pics I was able to capture at her photo shoot.
Enjoy the photographs!