Today's Guest: Maurice Rodriguez of Mr. Maurice Photography. in Orlando, Florida
Today's Host: John Bentley
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Maurice Rodriguez Expert PageANNOUNCER: This program is sponsored by morephotos.com the online photo sales solution to professional photographers worldwide. Welcome to the VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight with your host, John Bentley. JOHN: Today on VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight we have Orlando, Florida, photographer, Maurice Rodriguez, of Mr. Maurice Photography. Welcome to the program today, Maurice. MAURICE: Well thank you. Thank you for having me. JOHN: Yes. Now you actually have a studio in Winter Park which is a little community inside of Orlando, true? MAURICE: That's correct, yes. JOHN: So tell us a little bit about Mr. Maurice Photography. MAURICE: Well basically it's a special boutique studio. We specialize in weddings and children's portraiture, although, we can do other things. Those are our specialties, and we like to think that we are very, very good at it. I do all the hands on, myself. I do all the photography. I do have staff that helps me prepare the photographs for delivery and also do the artwork and other things that are needed to go along with the photography, but the actual photography is done all by myself. JOHN: Now certainly families and children have got to be a lot of fun to work with, but I'm sure there are situations that you come across that are difficult. How is it working with children? MAURICE: Well, with children, the good news and the bad news is that they're unpredictable. That makes it a lot of fun and you get some incredible pictures sometimes, but they in turn make it tough for them to participate sometimes. Most of the younger children they have a short attention span and it's really difficult to get them to do things. Most of my photography, although I have a studio, and I do studio photography, I specialize even more so in outdoors and on location. People's homes and in parks, lakes, and I find it...going outdoors just makes it a lot easier for the children and for pets when we do both pets and children together so they feel more at home and they don't feel the pressures of the studio and the lights beaming down on them and doesn't remind them of the dentist's office. JOHN: That's a good point. So certainly being in the Florida area, I'm sure you do a lot of beach photography? MAURICE: Well actually Orlando is landlocked. It's about an hour from the beach so we don't do a lot of it, although, we do do some of it. Mainly Florida has got so much greenery and picturesque everywhere you go. It's hard to find a place that's ugly in Florida, and as you know, we really don't have a winter. It just gets in the low 70s occasionally and have to turn the air conditioning off. JOHN: Oh geez. MAURICE: We don't really have...we don't do many snow pictures. Occasionally we do have days when we have to get cotton out for Christmas and fake snow. But for the most part we're very blessed here and have incredible weather and can photograph outdoors most every day of the year. JOHN: Let's talk a little bit about your history as a photographer. How did you get into photography in the first place, Maurice? MAURICE: Well I started when I was 8 yrs old. My father gave me a camera and we went on a trip and I really thoroughly enjoyed it and unfortunately we went to the Grand Canyon and it was extremely hot that day and I left my camera in the car and it was plastic and when we came back, it was a puddle of plastic, and so about a month later, my father bought me a real camera and I started taking pictures ever since and when I went to high school, I was on the year book staff and it went out from there, decided to go to college and learn more about photography and got a degree in photography from Daytona Beach Community College which is one of the premier schools for photography in the country. And then just going on from there and then opened up my own business and been doing it ever since. JOHN: When did you open up your own business? MAURICE: I opened up my first studio in 1976. JOHN: Great. Loads of experience then. MAURICE: Well, very little, just practical experience. I was still in high school and it didn't actually...I wanted to take photography in high school, but they didn't have it so I ended up being the teacher's assistant in help teaching it which was fun, but it wasn't a lot of help for me. So most of it was just based on the school of hard knocks, going out there and practicing and learning the hard way and then I started doing weddings then, and I started doing weddings then and I started by doing weddings for free and asking people if I could photograph their wedding for free just to get practice and see how I would do and then from there I got better and better and then I started to charge money for it. JOHN: Now weddings present their own kind of problems. When you do a wedding or when you've done a wedding, have you taken an assistant with you to help you with the situation? How do you deal with weddings? MAURICE: Well nowadays I do bring an assistant for two reasons. It is easier and, you know, a lot of people are thinking if you have an assistant or second photographer they're getting more for their money, but most of the time I like to work by myself. I, for many, many, many years, worked by myself. That way I have the one on one relationship with the bride and the groom, and I can talk to them and find out if they're tired or if they need to stop and take a break or if they want to take more pictures or be more creative and a lot of my pictures are based on the personality of the pride and groom. If they're a fun couple and want to do a lot of fun things and we can do that and if they're more of a subdued couple then I taper down and we just do more of the basic shots. Some times people like fun stuff, some times they like more romantic stuff, and working with them more one on one you can figure that out a lot easier. And I love what I do so, weddings can be a lot of work. There's a lot of stress, because it's a one time shot and you don't get a second time to do it. You can't come back on Monday and say, ok, this didn't workout let's do it again. It doesn't matter what the weather is or what they're attitudes are, what the church allows, or the hotel or wherever they're getting married at allows. Whatever it is, is what it is, and you've gotta work with that. Kind of like photographing children. JOHN: Sure. Now we are in the studio today with Orlando, Florida, photographer, Maurice Rodriguez, of Mr. Maurice Photography, and you're listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. We're going to take a break here, but before we go, Maurice, would you give your website address and contact information real quick. MAURICE: Sure it's very simple, www.mrmaurice.com and my phone number is (407) 952-2300. JOHN: With that, we're going to take a break; we'll be right back. ANNOUNCER: This VTalk Radio Spotlight is sponsored by morephotos.com, the online photo sales solution for professional photographers worldwide. ANNOUNCER: Did you ever wonder why the groom is supposed to carry the bride over the threshold? What does the saying something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue mean? Visit www.weddingdetails.com and click on the lore and tradition section. We've got culture and tradition information from around the world. Visit www.weddingdetails.com tonight. JOHN: We are back in the studio with Orlando, Florida, photographer, Maurice Rodriguez, of Mr. Maurice Photography, and you're listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. Welcome back to the program, Maurice. MAURICE: Thank you. JOHN: Now we've been talking about your photography business, and I'm sure you do all sorts of different types of photography. Let's talk about some of the different types of photography that you're doing outside of the weddings and the portraits. What do you have going on? MAURICE: Well I'm getting into the senior market. JOHN: Is this time of year busy for that or when is the busy time of the year for senior portraits? MAURICE: Actually the high school senior market starts in the summer. When actually the kids are between the grades going into the next school year. So during the summer is when we're busy. But we're busy now for preparing for that. Coming up with new props and ideas and backgrounds, places to photograph. Trying to figure out what the young kids of today like. JOHN: That's a good angle. Now, also you dabble in wildlife photography, kind of something that you probably more of a passion than anything else, huh? MAURICE: That's exactly right. That is my passion, my hobby. Seems funny having photography as hobby when you do it for a living, but it's really...I love photography it's something that I live, breath, and eat. I come home from work and I do more photography. I go to sleep and I dream about it, so. That's just all I do. So the wildlife is just a different avenue of photography. It doesn't deal with people and I get to go in the outdoors and it's just an incredible experience to go out there and photograph some beautiful animals. JOHN: What about your fine art photography? Tell me a little bit about that. MAURICE: Well that's kind of evolved from the wildlife photography. A lot of places that I go that are where the birds and different wildlife that I photograph has some beautiful landscapes and then I've taken these photographs and manipulated them a little bit to make them more artsy and basically ended up with some fine art photography from that. JOHN: Now are there, what about some other types of photography that you dabble in? MAURICE: Well that's pretty much most all of it. That keeps me busy 99% of the time. I have a four year old son that is my favorite model who keeps me in practice. Photographing him is pretty much like photographing sports photography. It's very, very fast and you don't know what's going to happen the next second. JOHN: Sure. What about sports photography? Do you do that at all for people? MAURICE: Sports? JOHN: Yeah. MAURICE: I do some of it. Sports photography is...to do it really, really well, you have to be highly specialized at that sport. I think the more you know about the individual sport, the better you're going to be at it. When it comes to like football, baseball, basketball, I've photographed them all for people, but mainly more as a generality rather than a specialty. JOHN: What about corporate work? Do you get any business photography? MAURICE: Yes, actually when I went to school, my degree was in commercial photography and that was actually the thing that I wanted to do most, but unfortunately, Florida is not a very industrial state. It's basically tourist and so there's not a lot of corporation factories and manufacturing so the big time commercial work that I wanted to do just never flourished so that's why I went more towards the wedding and children market, although, we do do some of it here, it's not as abundant as it would be up north. JOHN: Let's talk a little bit about the surrounding communities in the Orlando area that you do work out of. MAURICE: Well we're very lucky here, because we have all these great attractions. Disney World, Sea World, Cypress Gardens, and they have not...they've brought in a lot of people from all over the world that have sprouted out communities all over the area, and some of them are very unique, and they're very, very picturesque everywhere you go so that's made for even more places to go photograph. JOHN: What about the actual cities and communities in the surrounding area? MAURICE: Orlando has a lot of little towns or cities, Mount Dora area, Kissimmee, Winter Springs, of course, Winter Park where I work out of, and Clairmont. There's just a lot of little towns and they're very quaint and haven't been spoiled by the big city type of commotion. You can drive a few minutes outside of Orlando and be in a very unique little town. JOHN: Now one last question before I let you go today, Maurice. What is your most important goal as a photographer when shooting a client or an event? MAURICE: To make them happy so that when they look at the picture and they go, wow, I really love that picture, I mean, that's ultimately my biggest goal. JOHN: I've read some of the testimonials on your website, and they sound pretty impressive. We certainly appreciate you joining us today on VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight, Maurice. MAURICE: Well thank you very much for having me. It's been a pleasure. JOHN: Now before I let you go, why don't you give your website address and contact information one more time, please. MAURICE: Ok, it's www.mrmaurice.com and my phone number is (407) 952-2300. JOHN: We've been in the studio today with Florida, photographer, Maurice Rodriguez, of Mr. Maurice Photography, and you have been listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. Thanks for tuning today. Everyone have a great afternoon. ANNOUNCER: You have been listening to the VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight; only on www.vtalkradio.com . Radio for the 21st Century.
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