Senior year of high school only happens once, and most students want a lasting memory they can reflect on years later. Enter CG3 Photography: a successful self-made business specializing in Naperville-area senior portrait photography.

CG3 is the brainchild of Caroline Trespalacios, a Naperville resident, mom and professional photographer. Her business took off in 2012 and has been widely popular ever since. For those curious, “CG3” stands for the photographer’s initials, Caroline Gomez (her maiden name) Trespalacios (Spanish for “three palaces,” hence the “3” in the name).

Trespalacios is a Buffalo, New York native, but moved to Florida when she began college. She studied interior design and worked as a photographer at Disney World. When she got married, she moved to where she currently lives, Naperville, IL.

After being a stay at home mom for a few years, Trespalacios took a risk. She decided to make a living out of what she loves–photography. She is self-taught and isn’t afraid to admit she’s made plenty of mistakes. That said, she has remained passionate enough to create the business she owns today and continues to learn and challenge her artistic limits.

“It’s all I think about,” Trespalacios said. “I’m always thinking about a way to be creative and what will appeal to kids.”

To start finding her first clients, Trespalacios took the old fashioned route by venturing into local businesses, handing teens her card and hoping for a response. With word spreading and business picking up, Trespalacios found herself with 167 applicants for the CG3 senior representative program from the class of 2017 alone.

Junior Grace Nathe was one of the students from Naperville North chosen to be a CG3 senior representative for the class of 2017. Despite her knowledge of the many applicants this year, she decided to give the application a shot.

“All my friends started signing up, and it just seemed like a really good opportunity to step out of my comfort zone,” Nathe said. “I honestly had no expectation to get in, so when I got the text it was super surprising.”

After a tedious process of reviewing applications, approximately 30 models are chosen. Trespalacios says the key things she looks for in choosing a model is a social media presence across multiple platforms and a thoughtful description about why the applicant wants to be a CG3 model. She aims to form a group of a wide variety of models, from dancers to athletes to actresses.

Senior Jenny Gibson represented the class of 2016 this past year and thoroughly enjoyed the time she spent with Trespalacios and the people she met along the way.

“Sometimes I feel like getting pictures taken of you can be kind of awkward, but [Trespalacios] made me feel really comfortable.” Gibson said. “The shoots were just very laid back and fun, and she made sure that everyone was having a good time.”.

When all of the representatives have been selected, they participate in a series of photo shoots with Trespalacios starting in December/January and lasting until May/June. The shoots are eclectic in style and implement outfits from the model’s own wardrobe. Although the shoots are to showcase the senior, Trespalacios has a large input in the kind of scene she wants to create.

“I will wake up in the middle of sleep, sit up and have an idea, and I start writing it down,” Trespalacios said.

Finally, when the shoots are wrapped up, Trespalacios offers a range of print, canvas and digital photos for the model and their family to purchase–a relic of the most exciting year of the student’s high school career.

“You’re never going to be a senior again,” Trespalacios said. “I love it.”