Sandra Sanchez Photography — Local services in West Chicago Township

Sandra is a TERRIBLE person with no sense of commitment!!! Unprofessional, unethical and irresponsible!!!

Sandra claims that she is hard core Catholic, but she has no right to even call herself that. If there is God and higher justice on this planet, Sandra should be forever banned from such special and sacred business as "Maternity and Newborn Photography"!!! I had a high risk pregnancy last year. Our very first child after years of failures and pregnancy losses.. I decided to treat ourselves to enjoyable and pleasant experience - to capture our Maternity moments, which turned out to be a horrific nightmare that's called "Sandra Sanchez Photography"! I researched thousands of reviews previously, interviewed many photographers over the phone, and finally entrusted our special moments of Maternity into Sandra's hands. BIG MISTAKE! We paid in advance ($1,300) and upfront the entire amount for Maternity and Newborn sessions, for what we've received a discount ($400). Tiago was the one who was charging payments and scheduling sesssions with Sandra. When I came for a consultation, she didn't even open the door. It was summer, hot and nowhere to sit. I drove over an hour to get there, then stood in 3rd trimester of my pregnancy waiting by her door, before she finally opened and looked totally surprised to see me. I thought she was joking. The day of, 1 hour before our Maternity session, she texts me to say that she refuses to provide us with services! I was at a loss because we already paid in full for 2 sessions upfront. After Tiago convinced her to do the session, she did it, but she never delivered the final images!!! She played games with us for 6 months, she was disappearing on us, giving us all kinds of excuses, we never received ANY of our Maternity photos!!!! NONE!!!! It's been 7 months. She called us randomly once in October last year, and blamed everything on Tiago, claiming that he took off with money and never paid her. Considering such horrible experience, she offered us to deliver our final images as agreed, but at that time already for 60% of the original amount paid, after we file the dispute and recover money from the bank (and she was to do both sessions, of course). I think at that point (2 months after our session and our baby was born already) it was only fair. Instead of doing what she promised, she disappeared again, and we kept patiently waiting.. The dispute with the bank took 5 months, and it was extremely long and stressful battle, after what I finally did receive my money, in parts, this year (2022). Sandra called us in January of 2022, just to ask about money, suggest that she is unable to do the editing of our photos, refused to do the newborn (family) session, and to top it all off she had an audacity to ask even for more money for the Maternity photos she did NOT even care to finish!! I was shocked!! She wrote me a nasty email after, telling me that we can keep our money and never contact her again.. 2 months later she calls me out of a blue, claiming that she is a nice person, wanting us to have our Maternity photos, still accusing me of wanting "discount on top of a discount", and with nasty attitude offers "to edit" our photos. After scammed us already, she was lying to us for 6 months and "feeding" us with empty promises, I did not believe her this time that she will actually deliver our photos, because she sounded more like she was only after money rather than make it right for us and fix the terrible experience she delivered by far to us. So this "nice person" Sandra just hung up the phone on me, so easily. She didn't even sound that she was sorry. She brought us severe distress into our life and I will never forgive her that she stole our precious memories of Maternity that can NEVER be recreated... I do NOT recommend this horrible person Sandra anywhere near your family for photoshoot or ANYTHING ELSE!!! STAY...

Sandra is a very talented photographer with a very well ran business. I was very impressed with the process and the results.

Our relationship with Sandra and her team started when my wife told me she wanted "squished up" photos of our 11 day old son. She had contacted our wedding photographer and felt he would do a good job. He quoted a 30-60 minute photo shoot at our house. Being a very serious amateur photographer myself I realized that wedding photography had nothing to do with photographing newborns other than both types of photography requiring a camera. I googled newborn photographers and found tons of photographers in the Chicago land area that did "newborn photography". I decided to email about 8 of them to check pricing and availability. Many of them got back to me fairly quickly, they all stressed the very short time frame I had (7-14 days after birth), and very few of them had availability that would keep me in the 7-14 day window. Many of them pushed in-home shoots that may of may not get me in the 7-14 day window, home studios were options for some but again availability was in question.

Then came Sandra... I sent the email Monday night, got a call Tuesday morning and was in her 4000 sq. ft. studio Wednesday afternoon (I believe they had someone cancel, I wouldn't expect this type of last minute response).

The photo shoot lasted several hours in her studio (as opposed to the 30-60 minute in home shoot quoted by our wedding photographer) but it became very clear why after watching Sandra and her team in action. The work and talent required to safely pose newborns is intense requiring a highly controlled studio environment. I knew newborn photography was going to be different but I had no idea just how much. Pose after pose, shot after shot Sandra kept going. The passion, dedication, patience and love for newborn photography Sandra had was magical. When the photo shoot came to an end, her assistant asked when we could come in next week to view and select the raw photos (before editing). Surprised that they actually scheduled us the the following Monday.

We went in to view the photos the following Monday and was absolutely floored by the results. I knew Sandra had setup a bunch of shots and taken a bunch of photos but I had no idea just how well setup and executed every click of the camera was. The setup, lighting, composure and all camera settings were all dead on for just about every single shot. Really impressive. It was very difficult to select our favorite images as they were all so good and different.

Looking back on the experience and comparing Sandra to the other photographers I had talked to it was clear that I magically fell into a newborn photo shoot with probably one of the best newborn photographers in the world. Our single photo gallery looked good enough to be most other photographers complete portfolio. Looking at other award winning newborn photos online, it doesn't appear that Sandra missed a single shot or type of pose.

I highly recommend Sandra. I do not think there is another newborn photographer out there that can provide the results and experience provided by Sandra...

I really should have read the more recent reviews of Sandra before booking a maternity studio for my wife here. This review doesn't critique her work but rather her professionalism. We booked a maternity studio two months in advance after looking around for someone who wasn't going to charge a small fortune (less than $1000) and could do it on the weekend so I could watch the kid so she could go and have a wonderful Mother's Day gift. My wife went with her friend into the city to her studio after spending money to get her hair done for the session and I was to join her later on. When she arrived in the city, the photographer texted she was running late. She finally arrived but was not prepared to start shooting. After checking her equipment, she discovered that her batteries hadn't charged and her chargers were not working. Even if the chargers had been working, there would have been at least an hour delay and that would have pushed back the start by at least 2 hours. After finding out the batteries weren't going to work, the session was cancelled. I get it, things happen, and you have to roll with the punches. My wife worked with Sandra to reschedule for Monday because it absolutely need to happen before Sandra was leaving for such a long time that the next time she would be able to shoot is after the baby was born. She even tried to get an after birth session which we flatly turned down. The deal we had was that because it was a work day and my wife had no way to get to the city, she would come shoot at our house. We worked all night Sunday to clean up the house and stage it so we could do photo's there. My wife multi tasked while watching the kid to get her hair done so it would be done in the time for the session. I came in early to work to make sure I'd be home so she could focus on the session while I watched the kid. An hour before the session was to begin, Sandra cancelled again and only offered re shoot after she came back from her trip. We declined as we paid for a maternity session and not a newborn session. Thankfully, Sandra gave us our deposit back but that is about the only thing that went right with this entire experience. Based on the other recent reviews, Sandra also seems to have an issue delivering timely editing and processing of photos. Again, this isn't a critique of her skills as she seems to have them but what good is hiring someone for their skills if they don't perform them or better yet, perform them and take extended periods of time to deliver results. Do yourself a favor and get a photographer that is halfway decent, shows up on time, and deliver results in a...