Watch: Emily Cummings Gives a Tour of Studio 25 in Downtown Naperville

In this Living in Naperville episode, host Dan Firks tours Studio 25 with photographer Emily Cummings, from her start with a $500 Costco camera to the skylit studio and event space she now runs in the heart of downtown Naperville.

Read the full guide to Emily Cummings Photography →

Video Transcript

Dan Firks: Today I have the pleasure of meeting with Emily Cummings, the talent behind Emily Cummings Photography, some of the most stunning family and corporate photography. Let’s go inside and see what she does to make the magic happen. Hi, Emily, how are you today?

Emily Cummings: Good, how are you?

Dan Firks: Fantastic, thanks for having me.

Emily Cummings: Welcome to Studio 25 Naperville.

Dan Firks: Excellent, excited to meet with you today and take a look around, that sounds great. So Emily, let’s start from the beginning, tell me what inspired you to get into photography?

Emily Cummings: That’s an interesting question. It was right before my daughter Olivia was born, around gosh, 15 years ago. I was sewing clothes and decided, wow, this is fun, I’m going to create an Etsy shop, it was right at the start of Etsy. I decided that I needed to take good pictures of my wares. My husband was in law school at the time, so we had absolutely no money, and I said, I need to buy this $500 Canon Rebel from Costco. It was a Costco camera and a Groupon that got me started.

Dan Firks: Old Groupon, I think Groupon’s still around today, is it not?

Emily Cummings: It is. I did it alongside a technology job while running this business on the side, but after I’d been doing it for about 12 years, I decided it was time to go full-time.

Dan Firks: Excellent. So Emily, I’ve had the pleasure of living in Naperville now going on about 30 years, and I heard you might be a native, is this true?

Emily Cummings: It is true, I actually went to school here starting in kindergarten. We moved to Virginia for a little while, but then came back.

Dan Firks: Everybody comes back to Naperville.

Emily Cummings: Right, went to high school here, and we lived not too far away, in fact, I think you sold my parents’ house.

Dan Firks: I sold your parents’ house?

Emily Cummings: Yes, that same house that I grew up in.

Dan Firks: Oh my God, it’s a small world. And how many years ago was that?

Emily Cummings: 15 years ago.

Dan Firks: Wow, in that circle of events, I love that.

Emily Cummings: Yes, so we had moved to the city, and my parents followed behind us.

Dan Firks: So Emily, you lived in Naperville, and then you went to Chicago for a little bit, and then I heard you went somewhere else interesting?

Emily Cummings: I moved to Japan, yes, and I taught English in Japan, and I loved the experience so much that when I came back to the US, I decided to go back to school and get my Master’s in Education.

Dan Firks: Emily, tell me a little bit about your transition, from when you moved from Chicago here to Naperville to start Emily Cummings Photography.

Emily Cummings: Well, so I actually had Emily Cummings Photography in Chicago, along with Ten Little Bluebirds. I started off doing kids and family work when I was in the city, and about two years before COVID, we had started doing more business and branding photography. I actually decided to open up a space here in downtown Naperville, I knew this was the street to be on. I literally was walking around downtown Naperville, taking pictures of all the signs in the windows, and saw some real estate signs, so I called Christina and asked if I could come see the space.

Dan Firks: You’re going to take me on a tour here?

Emily Cummings: Going to take you on a tour, awesome. This is my third business, and this is Studio 25 Naperville, that we’re currently sitting in, and I would love to give you a tour of it. We are in the heart of downtown Naperville, right on Jefferson Street and Washington.

Dan Firks: I’m excited.

Emily Cummings: I love being down here and participating in a lot of the downtown Naperville activities, like the wine walks and the cookie walks. And you’re in walking distance to hundreds of businesses. Whether a photographer is renting the space, they can do pictures in here, they know the weather, they know the light, it’s easy, but then if they want to go outside and take pictures by the Riverwalk, it’s right there. We host events, but it’s nice because you can have them early, and then people can just head downstairs and go out to dinner afterwards.

Dan Firks: And you’ve got a skylight?

Emily Cummings: We’ve got lots of skylights, that’s why the daytime here is just a bonus for photography, we get great light in here.

Dan Firks: So it was meant to be.

Emily Cummings: It was meant to be. And we’ve got an outdoor patio, I’ll show you.

Dan Firks: Let’s go take a tour. I love this room.

Emily Cummings: This is where we do a lot of our photo shoots, because the light is so gorgeous. So when photographers come in, they don’t always need to use lighting, I use it just for consistency, but it’s nice because it’s just gorgeous light and beautiful views of downtown Naperville. My landlord let us paint it all white and put in the white floor, so that there’s no color cast, so it’s great, but it’s also great, we host showers and parties here, so it just works really well.

Dan Firks: Do you rent this space out, so anybody could rent it, have a little birthday party?

Emily Cummings: Yeah, or meetings, people will have meetings, teach about their coaching, those sorts of things, it’s very multi-use.

Dan Firks: Okay, so let’s see what we have in this part of the studio.

Emily Cummings: Yeah, our sitting area, where we were just a little while ago, it’s really cozy, it fits a lot of people. We had our ribbon-cutting here, with about 60 people.

Dan Firks: 60 people, okay.

Emily Cummings: Yeah, especially with the outdoor deck as well, which I’ll show you in a minute. And we’ve got this great table here.

Dan Firks: Is this where the food’s going to be this evening?

Emily Cummings: Yes, this farm table that people use all the time for dinners, or we can actually collapse it, and it gets as small as a console.

Dan Firks: Oh, that’s one of those tables?

Emily Cummings: Yeah, it’s one of those transformer tables, Instagram got me, I was like, oh, that’s perfect. Dan, you have to check out this patio space, it’s gorgeous out here.

Dan Firks: This is amazing.

Emily Cummings: We love when we can have parties in the summer, we get free music from Potter’s.

Dan Firks: And a sunset right over here, this is amazing, you can get another 20, 30 people out here.

Emily Cummings: You probably could. I need to figure out how to get a transfer system from the margaritas at Potter’s up to my space, some kind of rope system.

Dan Firks: I love that, this is amazing, thanks for sharing this area, this is great. Emily, I know you do a lot of family portraits and corporate photo shoots, and this past spring, the Dan Firks Team, we did a lifestyle photo shoot with you, we had a fantastic time.

Emily Cummings: Yeah, we had you laying on the ground doing photos, at like 7 o’clock in the morning, because we didn’t want so many cars when I’m laying on the ground.

Dan Firks: Yeah, we were over at Water Street, and we did that great shot of your team for lifestyle branding pictures for your business, you guys took care of that for us, and we’re so grateful for you doing that.

Emily Cummings: You’re welcome. And we are, this year, actually planning to do smaller versions of those branding shoots for businesses, four times a year, quarterly. We’re going to have days where businesses come in, and we’ll have makeup, we’ll have styling, all the fun stuff.

Dan Firks: And the Dan Firks Team will be back?

Emily Cummings: Well, good, I hope so, because we’ve got some great houses planned for where these shoots are taking place.

Dan Firks: Excellent. Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to show me around the studio.

Emily Cummings: I am so glad you came, it was a lot of fun to show you around. So when you’re looking for some of the best photography in Naperville, make sure you check out Emily Cummings Photography, and make sure to like and subscribe and check us out on Naperville.com. Have a great day, bye.

Dan Firks: Be sure to like and subscribe to get updates on our next episode, and for all your real estate needs, please visit Naperville.com.

Read the full guide to Emily Cummings Photography →