EP163 The Secret Sauce: Calm Under Pressure, Trust In The Kit, and a Dash of Irish Whiskey

This week, I’m recording late in the lounge with a glass of Irish whiskey, reflecting on the usual mix of chaos and joy in a photographer’s life. Some good news first: the Mastering Portrait Photography podcast has landed in the Top 100 Photography Podcasts, Top 10 Portrait Photography Podcasts, and Top 35 UK Photography Podcasts—all thanks to FeedSpot. A massive thank you to everyone who listens, emails, or stops me at events to say hi. The charts can be found here:https://podcast.feedspot.com/photography_podcasts/https://podcast.feedspot.com/portrait_photography_podcasts/https://podcast.feedspot.com/uk_photography_podcasts/   I share stories from a beautiful small wedding at Le Manoir, talk about how AI is both transforming and disrupting our industry (and how I’m using it to write useful code for the studio), and confess to completely changing my Instagram strategy so it actually makes me smile—feel free to check it out @paulwilkinsonphotography. The highlight? Racing through three days of corporate headshots in London, where the CEO arrives and my flash promptly refuses to fire—just classic timing. A reminder: knowing your kit inside-out and keeping calm is what clients are really paying for. If you fancy joining me in Oxford for a day of portraits, stories, and good company, there’s still a spot on our next Location Portraits Workshop. https://masteringportraitphotography.com/resource/mastering-portrait-photography-on-location-in-oxford-9th-june-2025/ As ever: trust yourself, enjoy the process, and be kind to yourself. Cheers!   Transcript   Introduction and Setting the Scene Well, it's been a while since I've recorded a podcast quite like this, but I'm sitting in our lounge. It's late. I've got a glass of Irish whiskey for a change, which is just beautiful. All of my whiskeys have been bought by someone and I love that. I love sitting and thinking of someone, a family member or a friend. 'cause I enjoy, well, the smell and the taste. There's some, I dunno why I like whiskey so much. Um, I just do, there's something, I think it's 'cause my mom and dad liked it. And possibly because of that, I find there's something really magical about the smell and the taste and the color and just, I don't know, something that sat in a barrel for a decade or more just appeals to me, and it has been another busy week. It's Wednesday as I record this, and yet it feels like it's been the end of a week. Um, it's just, it always feels like I'm playing catch up, but I think that's just the nature of the job. When I worked at Accenture all of those years ago, I quite liked the project mentality. Although we were busy, we ramped up and up and up and up until eventually we got to the delivery date. And then of course, once it was delivered, you've got a week or two off all of that pressure built and built and built. It was to an end point. And I don't think, as a photographer, I felt like that since I left that world now it's just a constant churn of to-do lists, retouching shoots, being energized, even things like recording this podcast. You have to be really in the mood to do it, and I'm not always. There have been plenty of times when I've sat down to record something and even a large glass of 15-year-old single molt doesn't do it. However, I am here, it is late. So forgive me if I sort of tumble over some of my words, but I really wanted to get, um, an episode out. I'm Paul and this is the Mastering Portrait Photography  📍 podcast.   Podcast Achievements and Listener Appreciation So before I get into the main body of, uh, the podcast this week or this episode, I wanted to give a little bit of good news. We have been voted by we, I mean the Mastering Portrait Photography podcast has been judged or voted, or I don't know. I don't exactly know how it's assessed, but we have been given three really cool things by the guys at Feed Spot who list and assess, uh, podcasts from all around the world. I. So we are in, uh, for photographers,