It’s a late Sunday afternoon, the sun is shining, and the smell of freshly cut grass (and the inevitable hay fever) is drifting through the studio as I sit down to record this episode. After a whirlwind few months — including seven incredible weeks photographing on Crystal Cruises — it feels good to be back behind the mic, even if I’m a little sniffly.

In this episode, I’m reflecting on the magic of authentic portrait photography, the rapid rise of AI in our world (and our inboxes!), and why the human touch still matters more than ever. Plus, there’s news about upcoming workshops, a few tech tips for cleaner files and faster edits, and a good-natured rant about AI-generated podcast pitches. As always, it's a mix of stories, laughter, tech, and a reminder to stay creative — and stay human.

Cheers

P.

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If there are any topics, you would like to hear, have questions we could answer or would like to come and be interviewed on the podcast, please contact me at paul@paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk. 

Transcript

Introduction and Podcast Setup

So it's Sunday afternoon, the sun is shining, and here I am late on Sunday recording this podcast and I'm recording it with the smell of freshly cut grass, uh, wafting in through the windows, which is gonna trigger my hay fever one way or another.

Um and also the reason I'm recording it quite so late at this stage of the day. It's 'cause my neighbors have been cutting their grass and they do have the loudest petrol mower in the world. I'm Paul, and assuming I can get through this without sneezing, this is the Mastering Portrait Photography  📍 podcast.

 Now, there is a lot going on at the moment. It is really good to be back. And of course, those of you who have been over the years, regular listeners will know this has been quite a long gap. 

Recent Adventures on Crystal Cruises

And the reason for that, as I may or may not have alluded to before we went away was Sarah and I spent seven weeks working for Crystal Cruises, working on onboard ship as a portrait, uh, photographer.

It is one of the best gigs in the world. I get to travel all over and this time around we were traveling around South America from Valparaiso in Chile all the way around the southern tip through re, which is just stunning. In Argentina over to the Falkland Islands, and then up through Brazil, across the Cape Verde and then finishing up in of all places, uh, grand Canaria.

It has been an incredible experience from start to finish, photographing the most amazing people I photographed. Interesting, funny, erudite professionals, creatives, musicians, authors. Oh, you name it, we did it. It was. An absolute, uh, blast. But of course that seven week gap has meant we've come back and life is incredibly busy here now two, and there's an awful lot going on at the moment.

Upcoming Workshops and Studio Updates

Tomorrow I'm doing one of my favorite things, which is to run a one-on-one workshop, which is part of an annual mentoring, uh, program. We run this program, um, for photographers, for portrait photographers. I should be clear, I dunno very much about landscaping at all. Uh, but certainly for portrait photographers.

And over the ki the course of a year, we set some targets, uh, and then work steadily towards 'em, and I absolutely love it. Honestly. I always come across, I always come outta these, uh, sessions buzzing with energy and ideas. Probably as many as our delegates do as well. So I'm really, really looking forward to that.

The studio is all clean and tidy, Sarah and myself. Painted it. We donned our overalls, um, and spent an entire day cleaning it all out and painting the white wall white. Again. It hasn't been done for a little bit. It. And for some reason this time round I've managed to pick the right white. I know that sounds kind of ob obtuse, um, but there are lots of different tones of white and this particular one is almost exactly, uh, the same as the ISO standard for a reference white, which is really nice.

So all of the images now have this really lovely clean look. I dunno what I picked last time, it clearly wasn't quite the right white or I didn't note at the time, but this white is perfect. So I have the reference numbers, if anyone's curious. I can tell you what it is and it seems to work really, uh, really well.

And if that wasn't enough of all the things that are going on, we've also released a whole stack of new dates and a couple of brand new titles for our workshops, which I will share with you at the. End of this podcast, if you fancy, uh, joining one of those. Uh, and alongside everything else we've been photographing with the hearing dogs.

We've been photographing with all sorts of commercial clients. Um, the diary is absolutely solid and somehow today I've had to squeeze in and find the time to sit and clear my head and figure out the planning for our upcoming bootcamp, which has been on the diary for a little bit. Now, it isn't a new workshop though.

This is the first time we've run it, so I'm having to figure out exactly. What that's gonna look like. Two days of intensive portrait chat, technique and practice. Um, all about portrait photography. But we have over two days the time to spend really exploring different ideas. And of course we have the evening in between the two days when if people wanna put some of what we've gone through into practice or start to shape what we'll do the next day, we have the opportunity to do it.

It's absolutely packed. We've got people coming from all over, all over Europe for that one. Uh, which I'm really excited about. I think there might be one place available. Gome, I should have gone and looked, uh, to see if that've gone, but I think there's a place available if anyone fancies it. It's on the 12th and 13th.

12th, can't even say it. 12th and 13th of May, and it's going to be a blast. So if you fancy that, I think there's, uh, a date available. Again, I'll give you, uh, details of where to find those things at the end. Anyway. Here's a question for you. 

AI in Photography: Tools and Trends

Has anyone else noticed a steady stream of emails lately that sound human, but simply because you get so many, you just know they can't be.

There's something about not just the email, but the number of them that I get that all have a very similar wording. I mean, maybe it's just me. Maybe it's because of this very podcast. Um, and I get a lot of emails, a lot of agencies and things offering me the opportunity. Here's the opportunity to have a guest that I'd never heard of, um, on the podcast.

And there's something about the way that these emails feel that a suspiciously well. Polished. So the question is this the future now? I mean, AI is brilliant for certain things. Evoto, for instance, is mind blowing. I love this application. Um, it's a retouching suite. It's from Singapore, a team in Singapore, and it's as close as I've seen yet to having.

Real craft finished retouched portraits. It is getting that good. It's not quite there. There's still a lot to be said for the hand finishing the final touches, the little bits and pieces, tune in the colors and the little things that I. Probably AI will never get because it's all down to you and you alone.

So AI will do the bulk of it, but when it comes to your personal little taste, your little tweaks, maybe it won't get there, but it certainly gets you 90% of the way there. I'm playing right now with the beta version five, and it is impressive to put it mildly. It is really, really, really good. Um, similar vein, you know, uh, in terms of.

Uh, prepping files. I love PureRAW5 from DXO optics. Um, it's just this plugin in Lightroom. I don't use an awful lot of its power, I suspect, but it's great when I have a slightly dirty file, something where maybe the noise has come up a little bit or I'm having trouble, maybe it's just, I dunno. There's something where it isn't quite right. It's very, very good for giving you beautifully clean files with no pin cushioning, no aberrations. Really nice, really nice if you like, a lovely clean file. So that's worth checking it out. I don't know, actually if, uh, PureRAW5 is yet in its public release.

Um. Uh, I'm a, I'm on the beta list, so I get to see it a little bit early, but as soon as it comes out, I suggest you get a hold of a, of a trial copy and have a play. And then of course, on top of that, if there wasn't enough AI floating around with, um, competitors. Adobe themselves, the king of the crop, the, the, the big, the biggest, uh, I guess the biggest name.

In photography, retouching and post-production. Um, Adobe have their own AI magic from generative fill to those ridiculously good subject and sky selection tools, which are probably the best thing about all of the ai as far as I'm concerned. The ability to hit select subject and there is, and of course, the remove tool for getting rid of people that you don't want in the background.

All of these things are saving hours on editing, and it's a joy, particularly if you keep a control of it. And you get it to do what you want it to do, but, and this is a big, but it's there to assist, but it doesn't create without me steering it. These emails though. Now you can tell they are AI generated.

Let me read you one. Let me just fix my email. Here it goes. Hey, Paul. It's always a good