EP165 AI Won’t Take Your Job. But Another Photographer Using It Just Might.

This one starts with a dodgy lane choice, a Starbucks coffee, and a misjudged underpass. As always.

I’m back in the Land Rover — which might be its final podcast outing before it finds a new home — and today’s episode is a rambling, reflective road trip through customer service, creative resilience, and the rapidly growing presence of AI in our industry.

The day started badly. Cold shower (thanks British Gas), broken editing software, and a head full of terabytes. But it ended with a reminder of why kindness, craftsmanship, and conversation still matter. A haircut from someone I’ve known for 18 years. A deep chat with the owner of Michel Engineering while he lovingly took apart my ancient-but-beautiful record deck — the very same design featured in A Clockwork Orange and owned by Steve Jobs, no less. And then... a disappointing interaction with a distracted barista and a headset-wearing drive-thru operator. Same building, worlds apart.

Customer service, it turns out, is alive and well — just not always where you'd expect it.

But the main theme of this episode is AI. Not the doom-and-gloom kind, but the real stuff: the tools I’m already using, how they’re reshaping our workflows, and how they might be reshaping entire economies. It’s not AI that’s coming for your job — it’s the photographer who learns to harness it.

We talk about:

• AI tools I already use (like EVOTO, Imagine AI, ChatGPT, and XCi)

• Using AI as a teaching assistant, sub-editor, and productivity coach

• The real-world implications of AI-generated ads, coding layoffs, and what it means for creatives

• Plans for a new AI section on masteringportraitphotography.com

And if you hang in there until the end, I’ll tell you about a girl named Dory, a gutsy 12-year-old contortionist, and the new edition of Mastering Portrait Photography — complete with fresh images, a decade of stories, and a very special launch offer.

So pop on your headphones, admire the wheat fields if you’ve got them, and come along for the ride.

Spoiler: there’s C3PO’s eye in here too. Yes, really.

 

🛠️ Mentioned in this episode:

• Michel Engineering (Turntables) – evoto.ai

• Imagine AI – Smart colour-matching editing masteringportraitphotography.com/workshops-and-mentoring

Transcript

Introduction and Setting the Scene

Well, as you can probably gather from the noise going on in the background I'm back out in the Land Rover, uh, for one more podcast out on my travels. Um, you'll have to bear with me as I navigate the carpark away from Starbucks. Uh, it's been an interesting day in so many, so many ways, and I will talk about all of that.

 

Uh, where do I, where do I start? Right? Well, I'm back out on the road. Maybe one of the last ones. 

 

Memorable Cars and the Land Rover

 

The Land Rover is, as many of you know, now up for sale and not because I don't absolutely love this vehicle. It is by far, by far and away my favorite car that I've ever owned, and I've owned some cars that I have truly loved.

 

Of course, my first car, an Austin Allegro affectionately named nicknamed Benny, as in Benny from Top Cat. Um, because it's small, bubbly, and round. Um, I owned a Mark two Ford Escort with a steering wheel so small you could touch your thumbs across it, but an engine so small that it really wasn't a sports car, but that was just a beautiful thing.

 

I've owned a Lexus IS 200, which. From a speed freak point of view is a lot more lively than even this Land Rover is, but in the end. This four wheel drive farmer's vehicle has traveled with me all over the uk from job to job, from client to client. And even today as I was visiting, uh, a place to get my record deck repaired, which I will tell you about, the guy that owns the company came out and all he could do, in spite of the fact we're looking at one of the rarest record decks around.

 

In spite of that, all he could do was talk about the Land Rover. I'm Paul, and this is the Mastering Portrait Photography  📍 podcast.

 

 Oh, do you know what I've just done? You know, when you get in a lane, because there's a roundabout coming that I have to turn right at. So I got in a lane and now I'm in an underpass going underneath the roundabout. That I needed to turn right at. How that's really frustrating. I hate it when that happens.

 

However, I'm up in Hichin, uh, Stevenage way, um, in the southeastern ish corner of the uk. Weirdly enough, I've been here before. I thought I recognized it. This is where I photographed Kevin Fong in the, um, British Aerospace. It looks like it's now Airbus here. I've just driven past th