Martin Hajdukiewicz - Woodland landcape photographer and YouTube presenter

Nick is away for this episode, where Steve's guest is Martin Hajdukiewicz, a Warwickshire based woodland and landscape photographer. Self taught via YouTube channels, Martin has become an accomplished YouTube presenter himself. Martin is also administrates Thumbs Up Photography, a friendly and collaborative Facebook group of photographers with over 1500 members. 

Links to channels mentioned in the show:

Martin Hajdukiewicz Website : https://www.mhlandscape.co.uk/

Martin Hajdukiewicz Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/mhlandscapephotos/

Martin Hajdukiewicz YouTube channel : https://www.youtube.com/@MHLandscape

Nick Church and Steve Vaughan are professional wedding photographers based in the UK. They both use Sony Alpha cameras and lenses.

Nick's website : https://www.nickchurchphotography.co.uk/
Nick's Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/nickchurchphotography/

Steve's website : https://www.samandstevephotography.com/
Steve's Wedding Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/samandstevephotography/
Steve's personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevevaughanphotography

Any technical information given by the presenters is based on their understanding and opinion at the time of recording

Transcript

Steve Vaughan (00:01)
Hello again and welcome to the photography pod, a photography podcast for both working professionals and enthusiast photographers alike. My name is Steve Vaughan and normally I'd say, and also I'm joined by my good mate, Nick Church. But Nick isn't with us today. Nick's just been working at the photography exhibition, doing a couple of talks at the photography show down in London. So he's making his way back and having a well earned rest from presenting and training at that event. But he'll be back again with us next time.

But I do have a special guest with me who I'm going to introduce now. His name is Martin Hajdukiewicz and he's a landscape photographer based in Warwickshire. And I first came across his work through the magic of YouTube because YouTube and Google obviously knows more about me than I probably would care to admit to. And I was flicking through YouTube one day and Martin, and we will talk about his YouTube channel in a second, but Martin's video came up of taking

Woodland Photos on Cannock Chase. And Cannock is where I'm from originally, or very near to Cannock. And I spent many a day as a kid up on Cannock Chase, not taking photos in those days, but walking and exploring. So it obviously knew that I would be interested in something to do with photography and Cannock Chase, which is a little bit scary. But anyway, it's got the two of us together. I'm delighted to welcome Martin to the podcast. So Martin, how are you, sir?

Martin Hajdukiewicz (01:22)
Really great and great job with the pronunciation, Steve. Yeah. Really good, thank you. And thanks for the invite. I'm really glad you enjoyed the video that I put out probably a couple of months ago now.

Steve Vaughan (01:26)
practicing.

I loved

it. Yeah, loved it. And we will talk more about this. So, Heide Kavits, so we were just saying before we started recording, that's a Polish name, I believe, originally.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (01:45)
It is, yeah. My granddad was Polish and came over to the UK just after the Second World War.

Steve Vaughan (01:50)
Sure. Yeah. Fantastic. So let's talk a bit about yourself then. your, I know photography isn't necessarily your full-time job, but it's something you're very passionate about and you have a lot of presence online, which we're going to talk about, but landscape is mostly your thing. Is that what you focus on mostly?

Martin Hajdukiewicz (02:07)
Mostly landscape, although I'll give anything to try once. Yeah, I mean, I actually have had a go at wedding photography once. Yeah, and I'll be honest, I take my hat off to you. Any wedding photographers out there, I just can't do it. I can't deal with the people.

Steve Vaughan (02:11)
It won't be all, yeah.

you fool!

Yeah, that's the fun bit really. Yeah. I've got one on Friday, actually. I got one on my own, which is very rare. And I think it's about 450 we're in now. Yeah. You got to like people. I'm not saying you don't cause my, but you got to like working with people and dealing with, with people. And I guess, you know, the, trees and things don't talk back or don't, get drunk or don't, you know, throw up all over the place and things. Yeah.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (02:50)
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah. But as you said, landscape photography is my thing. Having said that, very recently, I've been doing quite a bit of street photography. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (03:01)
We will talk more about it that's one of my passions

as well. So what got you into photography in the first place?

Martin Hajdukiewicz (03:07)
Um, I don't really know. Well, it's a weird one. So I've always, I mean, I've got a sort of strong IT background and I've always liked, for some reason, I've always liked tinkering the photo. So I, you know, I've gone on holidays with a family and I take photos on my smartphone and I could never just settle for a snapshot. I always wanted to do something with those photos, have a little tinker, play with this, boost the contrast, this, that, I think from there, I've thought to myself one day, I fancy getting a proper camera.

Steve Vaughan (03:10)
You

Right.

Right.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (03:37)
so I got myself a little Panasonic GX 800, little tiny micro four thirds thing. use that for a couple of years. I didn't really know what path I wanted to go with my photography. All I knew is I wanted a good camera and I wanted to go out there and take photos. like yourself, watched a lot of YouTube and I found myself watching a lot more landscape photography channels and it kind of just expanded from there. I mean, I've always had a sort of strong

Steve Vaughan (03:41)
Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (04:04)
background in the outdoors when I was growing up, a wee nipper. I was in the air training course, so I used to go and do a lot of camping, hikes and stuff like that. So I think that's the two kind of just came together.

Steve Vaughan (04:13)
Okay.

Merged together, sure, sure. So obviously living in Warwickshire, we do respect to people living in Warwickshire, it's a beautiful county, but you're not blessed with dramatic mountains, cliffs, waterfalls and that kind of thing. was that why a lot of your work has ended up being sort of woodland based? Is that what forced you into that kind of, or drew you into that kind of way of working?

Martin Hajdukiewicz (04:38)
I think predominantly yeah, because you're absolutely right. The Midlands is really not your typical landscape photography hotspot. And yeah, all we've got around here really, I'd say we're photographing is certainly one or maybe two windmills. actually, one of those windmills is getting its sales put back on today, apparently. That's Chesterton, Chesterton windmill. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (04:46)
And I'm a millionaire, so I can say that, yeah.

Okay.

wow. Okay. Which one's that? of course. Yeah, I know what that is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (05:07)
Exactly. We've got canals around here. They get a bit boring after a while. And woodland photography. now Cannock Chase, obviously, as you saw in that video, to me, it's only an hour down the road. And I just find it such a special place. It's such a relaxing place. You you can go there and you can do wildlife photography if that's what you want to do. You can go there and do woodland photography. And that's obviously the route that I've gone. And I just love being out in the woodland.

Steve Vaughan (05:12)
Yeah.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (05:36)
You know, after a busy, stressful week at work, there's nothing better for me than at the weekend, just forgetting about that, getting lost in the middle of the woodland with a camera and a tripod and just seeing what photos I can make.

Steve Vaughan (05:50)
Absolutely. And if you don't know, of choice there, listener, it's a big area of mainly sort of pine woodland. I'm not a tree expert by any means, is that mainly pines? Yeah.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (05:59)
This.

There's a lot of pines there, but there's also a lot of silver birch and oak trees as well. So there's one particular area called Brockton Coppice that I am drawn to quite a lot. And it's got some amazing ancient oaks with the most weird and wonderful shapes to them. And if you get the right weather, you know, with a good foggy conditions, it just comes alive. just it just looks cinematic is the best. It's the best term I could use.

Steve Vaughan (06:04)
Okay.

with it is here.

Yeah. And we will

look at some of your, some of your images in a moment, but, you're right about getting lost there as well. used to have a caravan and a few years ago we were visiting family and we stayed on the caravan side of the Cannock Chase. And I decided to walk the dog at six o'clock in the morning and three hours later, was totally lost, completely lost. I, you know, I wasn't properly kitted out for that sort of morning's walk. So, I finally found my way back very embarrassingly all the, for the family to the Mickey enemy, but it is a.

It is a beautiful area, certainly. So, so that's one of your main favorite spots. Where else would you tend to go to if you get the choice?

Martin Hajdukiewicz (06:58)
It really is.

anyway, really tends to be, mean, I've, kind of pigeonholed myself into one corner with woodland photography. And I think a lot of people, a lot of my followers out there would probably consider me a woodland photographer. but I, I wouldn't put myself in that, in that category as much. I do love being up in the mountains in the Lake district, especially, Snowdonia. I like getting to the coast if I can, but as you, as you know, as a Midlander, the nearest, the nearest coastal.

Steve Vaughan (07:16)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (07:33)
location is probably the minimum of two hours away. So it's not always not always that easy, unfortunately.

Steve Vaughan (07:35)
Yeah, probably.

What we're going to try and do is have a look at some of your work actually and this is the first time I've done this. normally does this, but hopefully I'm going to get this right. So if just bear with me, so I've got a screen and share and hopefully that takes us to your gallery. Is that right? Are we both there? Yeah. Amazing. Wonderful technology works, isn't it? so you're saying here that, you know, woodlands do hold a special alert to you really. And it clearly comes across. just

Martin Hajdukiewicz (07:55)
Yeah, great stuff. Yep.

Steve Vaughan (08:06)
just took me through. this particular picture on the left, is that kind of chase, for example?

Martin Hajdukiewicz (08:10)
It's not actually, no, that was actually taken in Cheshire at a place I can't remember the name of. Alderly Edge. Yeah, Alderly Edge. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, this was taken actually around midday, hence the sun coming through there as we got in towards autumn. And I really went there to try and capture some autumn colors. But as you can see in the photo, they weren't.

Steve Vaughan (08:18)
Oh, I know that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Where will the footballers live?

Mm.

show.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (08:39)
quite there at that point. But I persevered with the morning and what really drew me to the scene was those roots on the sort bottom right-hand corner of the image, those exposed roots. I just loved the sort of the texture and the shape there. It just looks really quite nice. I've typically used, you your sort of roller furs here, as you can kind of see. And also obviously you've got that...

Steve Vaughan (08:50)
Yeah, yeah.

Mm. Mm.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (09:05)
that sunburst just coming through the edge of the trunk of the tree there. Just a really nice, I think personally, well-composed scene.

Steve Vaughan (09:08)
It's spectacular. Yeah.

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah. I mean, I like doing landscape photography, but I won't claim to be any good at it, but I would never have thought of doing that, of getting that sort of sun stars effect through, you know, I'd probably just completely overexpose the picture probably. You've balanced that beautifully really, and really got a scene of the, a feel of the sort of the time of day really, as you say midday. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (09:31)
Yeah.

And this

was a blend of two images. I did expose the highlights a bit and the shadows just to give myself a reassurance policy, really, to make sure that I wasn't blowing the highlights too much. Now, obviously, you can never really fully expose for the sun. So I accepted that. That's fine. yeah, think balance-wise, I think it's just right.

Steve Vaughan (09:40)
All right.

course.

Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah. And is that something you, know, from your approach, your editing approach, do you do a lot of blending? Is there lot of things like focus stacking going on on landscapes as well, or are you more kind of straight out of camera? Right.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (10:12)
A lot of editing. Yeah, there

is a lot of editing with landscape photography. I take a photo with editing in mind when I'm taking it to make sure I've got all of the data that I need from those shots. When I get back into the PC, I know I've already got a sort of pre-vision, if you like, of how I want that image to look at the end.

Steve Vaughan (10:33)
Okay, wow. And then on the right we've got, I guess, as a macro shot.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (10:39)
It was, yeah, that was taken on a Sigma 105 mm macro. And I don't have that lens anymore, unfortunately, and I wish I didn't sell it. Yeah. I haven't ever really done much in the way of macro photography, but I took this photo and then the lens just kind of sat on a shelf for months on end. And I just thought, well, I'm not using it. So what's the point in keeping it? And then I sold it and now I'm kind of regretting my choices.

Steve Vaughan (10:43)
Okay.

We've all done that. Why did I sell that lens?

Hmm.

What I love about that photo Martin is the way it's lit actually. So have you done any additional lighting or is that just as the light was?

Martin Hajdukiewicz (11:15)
I

did actually use it. Yeah. So I've got the light I'm using to light my face at the moment. I use this as that light, which is an aperture tiny square thing. And I just basically put that sort of kind of it's out of frame obviously, but it's just sort of from below and then sort of pointing up. sort of trying under the the bottom of the fun guy there.

Steve Vaughan (11:24)
Okay.

That's a beautiful image. me just scroll through what else we've got here. on the right, we've got a gnarly tree in a winter scene. I guess it's like you were describing a kind of chase. I don't know if this is kind of chase.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (11:48)
It's not. No, so this was actually,

yeah, so I do get, I do get, I do get around quite a lot. This was taken at Bradgate Park.

Steve Vaughan (11:54)
Yeah, clearly.

I know that as well. My wife and I used to live just down the road from there, in Leicestershire.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (12:00)
Hahaha.

Yeah, exactly. Beautiful spot, really, is. Now, that image was actually taken on a, I think it was 1978, Pentax 50mm lens. And basically, that photo came about because myself and my good friend, Steve Stain, who also makes a lot of YouTube channels, YouTube videos, we've both got the same vintage lens.

Steve Vaughan (12:06)
It is.

Wow.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (12:32)
So we said to ourself one morning, well, let's do a challenge. So we gave ourself, I think it was an hour and said, right, we're going to split up for an hour and we're going to come back and basically go away and take as many images as we can in that hour using this vintage lens. And this is one of the photos I managed to get from that shoot.

Steve Vaughan (12:52)
Beautiful. I love the sort of desaturated look of it really. Was it a foggy kind of day or is it just that look the image that the lens has given it to the image?

Martin Hajdukiewicz (13:01)
There

was a slight mist to the air. wouldn't say it was foggy as such, but it was a very frosty, cold day. You can see by that sort of snow frost on the floor there. But what I tend to do, especially with lot of my woodland images, I do like to try and sort of achieve kind of a painterly look to my images if where I can. So what I tend to do is I tend to use a bit of an S curve in Lightroom and lift those blacks. there's never any real true blacks in the image, of matte in the black slightly.

Steve Vaughan (13:09)
Mmm.

Yeah, I can see that. Yeah.

Hmm.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (13:31)
And that does tend to give it that kind of almost slightly foggy look.

Steve Vaughan (13:36)
Love it. So are you doing mostly in Lightroom or is there lot of Photoshop going on here as well?

Martin Hajdukiewicz (13:41)
90%, well 95 % I would say in Lightroom. Photoshop I tend to use just for those extra elements where maybe I want to work a bit more on my clone stamping or removal of things. But I'm finding the more and more updates that happen to Lightroom, I'm not having to go into Photoshop as much.

Steve Vaughan (13:44)
Right.

Yeah.

I'd agree with that. obviously as wedding photographers, we tend to work on lots of images and doing small changes to lots of images. And it's very rare open Photoshop now, very rare. And the image on the left, that looks a bit like wild garlic if I've got that right. Yeah, go on. Okay.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (14:19)
It is. Yeah. And we're back at Cannock Chase with this one. Well, we kind of are, but we're not. It's a

little tiny woodland and I cannot remember the name of it, but it's a little tiny woodland. think it might be called George's Hayes. I have to fact check that. Yeah, George's Hayes. And it's a tiny little woodland, which for obviously a few months, well, a few weeks of the year, you get this amazing bloom of wild garlic. And yeah, I met up with a local guy there called Simon Harvey.

Steve Vaughan (14:49)
Mm-hmm.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (14:49)
he was a great photographer. doesn't do YouTube, but he's a great photographer. And, yeah, he introduced me to this place and this, I wish, I wish that I wish that smeller smeller vision existed because the smell from that morning was just, yeah, it was incredible.

Steve Vaughan (15:01)
I can imagine,

Yeah, it's a wonderful smell and we've gone walking in places in Scotland and it's just almost overpowering. It's been that strong. yeah, fantastic, fantastic. Stop sharing for a second and just come back to hopefully seeing each other while we're both there. Yeah, there we go. So why the...

So you've obviously, know, enthusiast photographer, why start a YouTube channel? What was the thought behind that?

think we lost your audio for second.

Can you hear me? You're muted somehow. I know how.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (15:56)
Can hear me now? Yeah, I honestly don't know what happened because I've not touched my keyboard or mouse at all.

Steve Vaughan (15:57)
Yeah, I Yeah. I don't know what happened then. No, could have been me. So

let me ask that question again and I'll cut that bit out. So you've decided to become a landscape photographer and a very accomplished one from the image of who you just look at. But why then start a YouTube channel? What was the thought process behind that?

Martin Hajdukiewicz (16:17)
Really good question. I say I've been doing landscape photography now for about seven years and I learned most of my craft through watching a lot of other people on YouTube. And yeah, I've always, I've always enjoyed making videos, little home videos, you know, when we've got a whole day and stuff. And I thought to myself, well, why can't I do it? And then I met, you know, I met Steve Stain who I've mentioned already.

Steve Vaughan (16:22)
Okay.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (16:48)
Um, cause he actually lives in Nuneaton he's a local to me as well. And we met one day and I saw him doing the process of making landscape photography videos. Um, and I just, yeah, the more and more I thought about it, I thought, I could, could have a go at this. Um, and I thought to myself in a sense, you know, because I've taken that knowledge in from watching other people on YouTube, could I possibly give something back by, creating my own videos in some sense?

Steve Vaughan (16:51)
OK.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (17:17)
And yeah, that's kind of where it started from really. And

Steve Vaughan (17:22)
And

I love watching your videos because they're nicely paced. You're not trying to preach at anybody. You're clearly doing it because you like doing it. And hopefully you're seeing some rewards from doing it, but you're not doing it because you want to be a multimillionaire from YouTube. doing it because clearly you like trying to help people and educate people.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (17:41)
Exactly that. Yeah, you know, I've got no intention and I've certainly got not got the ability to get, you know, hundreds of 1000 subscribers, that's never going to happen. With my full time job, it's just physically not possible for me to put out, you know, for example, weekly videos, I put them out when I can. And because I enjoy doing it. And that's, that's where I am really.

Steve Vaughan (17:53)
Hmm.

I think a lot of people get on the YouTube bandwagon and then they get almost sort of worried that they're not feeding the machine enough and keep putting stuff on a regular basis and then it becomes fun, it becomes work almost. You've got far more followers than we have on the PhotographyPod YouTube channel yet. So we're doing what you've achieved. So who were the photographers that inspired you to start a YouTube channel?

Martin Hajdukiewicz (18:15)
Yeah.

Yeah, so that there's some there's some significant names in there from a landscape photography perspective. So the first one that springs to mind and I think if you speak to many landscape photographers would say Thomas Heaton. I just love this content. I love the way he puts it together. I the way he tells a story in his videos. And as you mentioned myself, I don't find him very preachy at all. You know, he gives his advice and

Steve Vaughan (18:39)
Yeah, I'll follow him as well. Yeah.

Yeah, very much.

No.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (18:56)
You know, you can take it or leave it.

Steve Vaughan (18:59)
Yeah, I think that's a fair comment. it's very, almost like you're going along with him on the trip almost really, which is I guess the ultimate compliment to a presenter really. Yeah. Anybody else that sort of made you sit and notice?

Martin Hajdukiewicz (19:13)
Yeah,

from a woodland perspective, it'd have to be a gentleman called Simon Baxter. So he's actually very good friends with Thomas Heaton. They've set up a new club called 617 Club, which is like a photography community. And yeah, as a woodland photographer, he's got a very strong back catalog of really good woodland images, images that I could only really dream of, to be honest with you.

Steve Vaughan (19:20)
Okay, I'm coming across him.

Right.

What is it about them now? What is it you think he's doing? The editing and the composition? How is he approaching that? I will check him out after this recording.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (19:51)
Yeah,

editing he's very delicate with his edits. You know, he doesn't really push the saturation all. goes for what I strive for, which is that sort of painted look with his edit. So I think there's a lot of use of S curves in there. always, one of the key things with him, and I think one of the benefits he have is because it is his job as a full time photographer, he can note down these locations that he's been to.

Steve Vaughan (20:06)
Right.

Right.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (20:20)
frame up a composition and know when to go back when the conditions are just right. So he'll go back to a location again and again and again until he's got it exactly as he was, you know, had it in his mind.

Steve Vaughan (20:26)
Yeah.

And I guess, as you say, that's the benefit of being able do it full time. We were actually in the Lake District this weekend because my wife and I were up there with my late brother's wife and his friends. I lost my brother about 18 months ago and he walked all the Wainwrights or climbed them, whatever the right expression is. And one of his wishes was that his ashes were scattered up there. And it was a gorgeous, beautiful weekend, if you remember the weekend. And I thought this would be perfect, you know, to be able to take in photos, but...

Martin Hajdukiewicz (20:39)
wow.

wow.

It was.

Steve Vaughan (21:01)
Let's be honest, how often do you get days like that in the Lake District? Most of the time it's chucking it down with rain. So I suppose that is the benefit of doing it full time. You we don't have to get up and think today's the day.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (21:11)
Yeah, it's been an absolutely beautiful weekend. I was actually down in London all weekend for the photography show. Yeah. I mean, actually the weather we've had this weekend for landscape photography aren't conditions I would normally like to actually go out and actually photograph. For me, I much prefer fog, mist, snow, even rain. Because it just gives it that sort of atmosphere to an image.

Steve Vaughan (21:15)
okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, sure.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (21:38)
Bright blue skies

actually are probably some of the worst we could have as landscape photographers.

Steve Vaughan (21:43)
a bit like when it's a gorgeous bright sunny day at a wedding and one of guests says, oh you got it looking today mate and I'm thinking no it's too bright too contrasty too harsh everybody's going to be squinting so.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (21:53)
you want

that cloud you want that almost that natural softbox

Steve Vaughan (21:56)
Absolutely.

Yeah, give me me a cloud ad day when I'm doing group photos anyway. you mentioned community a moment ago when you're talking about one of the other photographers and I didn't notice any websites and if I've just applied to join you've got a very active Facebook community to just tell us a bit more about that.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (22:11)
Yeah, we have. So thumbs up photography. It's a community that was set up by myself and Steve Stain about two and a half years ago now. And there are many landscape photography or photography communities out there on Facebook. But we wanted to create a space that was

a real sort of positive place, if that makes sense. So I see it on a lot of Facebook groups. There can be a bit of negativity. And we wanted to have a space where we don't stand for any of that. And one of our first rules actually on the group is, you're an ass, we'll boot you from the group. we just want to be a group where you can have amateurs on their professionals.

Steve Vaughan (22:43)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (23:04)
Whoever the main thing is, we're just there to support each other. And we try and have a bit of fun as well. We try and organize things like meetups within the group. So we've got four organized for this year. We've got one at Cannock Chase in May, one in Clamwyn Island in Anglesey in summer, one in the Lake District in autumn, and then one in Whitby in winter.

Steve Vaughan (23:12)
wow.

Nice.

Fabulous locations, yeah. You're so right about the Facebook groups and I've been in loads and I've left loads as well that they can be very negative places. The typical thing would be, I don't know how to do this and somebody say, why haven't you read the manual? And just having, I'm not a member of the group, but having a quick through clue, people are actually sharing images, they're getting positive comments in there, which is such a nice thing to do really, yeah.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (23:51)
Yeah,

absolutely. It's a very active community, although not as active as we'd like it to be. I think that's just, it's just one of them things, you know, the way that Facebook algorithm works, it doesn't necessarily promote certain images unless it's, you know, received a lot of views and a lot of likes. But yeah, we try to push people to be as active as possible. And I think we're doing a pretty good job on that. And

One of the things we're doing to be active on that is we've actually running a two-weekly competitions. One is a what we call mobile Mondays. And that basically is any photograph that you've taken in 2025 on a mobile phone. And the winner of that basically gets a of a thumbs up photography sticker pack that we have and the opportunity to go into an end of year book that we're gonna produce.

Steve Vaughan (24:25)
OK.

brilliant.

What a soup right

here.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (24:43)
Then the year of her competition that we have is the thumbs up Thursdays, which is, which is our kind of our main competition within the group. Um, and that basically is any photo taken within the last seven days. It doesn't have to be mobile. It could be a professional camera. Um, and, uh, yeah, yeah. And basically the way that kind of works is the winner of the photography of the competition for that week becomes the judge for the following week. So it's kind of a rolling thing. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (25:10)
Wow, nice. OK, yeah.

I was going to ask you just the judging. So it's not just the you and Steve and the admin. It's whoever wins the last competition. Yeah, I love that.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (25:20)
Yeah, so that's basically the winner of that then goes into the end of year book that we're to get printed. And basically, when we've got that printed and we're selling those books, all the money we make from that is going to go to charity. So yeah.

Steve Vaughan (25:33)
super.

What a great idea. How important is Instagram to this as well as it's just a Facebook community?

Martin Hajdukiewicz (25:40)
It's just Facebook at the moment. Having said that, we have just launched an Instagram page. Nothing's on there yet. It was literally done, well, while I was at the photography show over the weekend, one of my friends, Colin, had set it up for us. So yeah, it's very, very new. There are a few other things in the work, which I can't talk too much about with the group. But yeah, it's really, really exciting what we're working on. think, I hope, it's going to be received really well.

Steve Vaughan (26:00)
That's exciting.

great stuff. As I mentioned, Nick's not on the pod today because he's coming back from the photography show. I didn't make it down this year because we'll say we're away in the lakes and then stuff got in the way but just to decide how did you find it?

Martin Hajdukiewicz (26:24)
I loved it. I tend to go every year if I can. I would say I preferred it when it was in Birmingham because it's easier for me to get to. But I made the most of it. You know, I had a full weekend away in London. So I went to the show on the Saturday and then I met up with Gary Norman, who's a sort of landscape and street photographer. And we did some street on the Sunday. But the show itself was brilliant. I really do enjoy it. Not so much to look at the gear.

Steve Vaughan (26:31)
Yeah, me too. Yeah.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (26:54)
Although I do like looking at the gear, but actually to meet other people that I respect and look up to and just general networking. I've met some great guys, had some great chats. Just really enjoyed it.

Steve Vaughan (26:58)
And now I agree.

Yeah, I totally agree. And just on the street photography then, you mentioned this earlier, I guess that's quite a new thing for you then. So what got you into that and how would you describe your street photography style?

Martin Hajdukiewicz (27:15)
Bye.

Yeah, so I don't I wouldn't say I have a style of search yet because I've only been out and done street photography on three occasions. So I don't even think I call it passion yet. Maybe just an interest. But yeah, myself and the thumbs up admin guys, we were up in Whitby recently. And we've done a morning shoot at Saltwood Bay, sunrise, landscape photography, great stuff. But before

Steve Vaughan (27:32)
curiosity. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (27:48)
Okay, we got back to Whitby where we were staying and then it was a bright blue sky day. So we've got we've got time to kill basically. Now, as I mentioned earlier, bright blue sky days landscape photography, then tend to be the best. So while I'm having breakfast, I thought to myself, well, should we try some street photography? I'd obviously had too many beers or something. don't know. But yeah, we went around and I just

Steve Vaughan (28:01)
None.

You

Martin Hajdukiewicz (28:17)
I thoroughly enjoyed the process of it. It's very different from landscape photography. You're very much thinking on your feet and running around almost like I had this chicken, but with a purpose. I was looking for things like light, looking for interesting characters, all this kind of stuff. yeah, I actually think I came across, came away with some pretty okay images, but I just really enjoyed the process.

Steve Vaughan (28:22)
anything.

Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (28:46)
That was with

my 28 to 200 millimeter lens. It's a Tamron, which is not the typical street photography lens.

Steve Vaughan (28:50)
wow, OK.

I guess

not, no.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (28:59)
but that's all I had.

moving forward to sort of recent days, did a street photography shoot in Coventry a couple of weeks ago with a seasoned street photographer called Paul Hill. Absolutely great guy. He's not on YouTube or anything, but he is a fantastic photographer and he's got a great back catalog. And yeah, he shared.

Steve Vaughan (29:09)
wow.

Check him out.

Yeah.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (29:25)
Yeah,

he showed me the ropes and he was talking about, you know, trying to use reflections in windows as well to try and give a sort of interesting perspective to the scene. And yeah, I was actually using my 50 mm Pentax lens for that. And yeah, I think that's worked out really quite nicely. And that's what I used in London this weekend, just gone as well.

Steve Vaughan (29:44)
We'll have to have a day in London together because I love street photography in London. Even if I don't end up with any particular limit for the day, I just enjoy getting down there, having a day walking around. can walk 12 or 13 miles and come back and not have much of a picture, but quite enjoy myself and more importantly, got some exercise as well. On about reflections, I don't know if you know Mr. Whisper and his work. I strongly recommend you check him out. So he's a Fuji film ambassador.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (29:59)
Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay.

Steve Vaughan (30:14)
And

my wife, Sam did a course with him last year, because we used to use Fuji and we know a of people in the Fuji community. And he's all about light, particularly low light, London in the evenings and night. But it's all about reflections and photographs through steamed up restaurant windows in Chinatown and things like that. His images are fantastic. So I strongly...

Martin Hajdukiewicz (30:37)
Yeah, that's what

Steve Vaughan (30:40)
Mr. Whisper, that is obviously not his real name. His name is Bal, but that's his nickname. I guess we started talking about gear a little bit, so let's go there. So what do you shoot with Martin? What kind of camera gear?

Martin Hajdukiewicz (30:52)
Yeah, so I've been using for a few years now the Sony a7R III. it's getting a bit long in the tooth now, but still a fantastic camera. mean, the picture quality it puts out is amazing. The only drawbacks I will find with the Sony a7R III is the flippy screen. I just wish it had a proper fully articulating screen.

Steve Vaughan (30:56)
Okay.

Absolutely.

that's interesting.

So this is a screen that would just fold out as opposed to coming all the way around.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (31:20)
Yeah, well, so at the moment it just sort of comes up and it just does that basically. I'd love one where I can just move it around as ever I want. Now the A7R5 does do that. because quite often, especially with landscape photography, I've got my camera right down, you know, almost on the deck to try and sort of make some use of a foreground interest. And, you know, none of us are getting any younger. Trying to get down that low to look at images, it can be a bit of a challenge.

Steve Vaughan (31:24)
Okay.

It does both of that. Yeah.

Mm.

Tell me about it, yeah.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (31:50)
That's the only reason I wonder what grade to be honest with you.

Steve Vaughan (31:56)
I screens can cause more discussion and more almost conflict between photographers. know one photographer, won't name him, but if he's listening, knows who he is, who sees flippy screens, screens that turn around, you know, like selfie mode as something from the devil. He absolutely despises them. And I guess the A7R5 is, it just gives you the best of both worlds. And there are other cameras there as well. So the R3 was at 48 meg from memory, megapixels or something like that.

Right, which is ample of course, yeah.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (32:26)
42.7 I think officially. Yeah, I mean it's more than ample for what I do. I don't tend to print a lot of massive prints, but yeah, I've never had any issues with resolution.

Steve Vaughan (32:34)
Mm-hmm.

No, I'm sure. use an R4 a lot from wedding day, which a lot of people say, why do you shoot with a 61 megapixel camera? But it just means I can shoot a bit lazy and a bit loose and crop if I need to big time afterwards really. And that's the beauty. So what about glass? What kind of glass are you using?

Martin Hajdukiewicz (32:51)
Yeah.

Yeah, so I've gone through a bit of a switch up in my gear in the past couple of years. So I was shooting on a Sony 20 to 70 millimeter lens, F4. Actually a really nice bit of glass. But I have been struggling with bit with my back recently. And I thought to myself, well, what would be a kind of good all round lens? Because I normally carried around the 20-70, the Sigma 100 mm, 100 to 400 mm.

Steve Vaughan (33:14)
Yeah, me too.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (33:26)
And also a 16 to 35, which that with the tripod and everything else, it starts to weigh quite a lot. And then you add the vlogging gear on top of that. So I've actually switched to a Tamron 28 to 200 mm as my main go-to lens. And that pretty much lives on the camera day to day. And if depending on where I'm going to, what kind of shoot I've got planned for that morning, the 100 to 400.

Steve Vaughan (33:29)
That's quite a weight, of course, yeah. Yeah.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (33:56)
or even the 16-35, they will just, you know, stay at home.

Steve Vaughan (34:00)
I guess for the 28 to 200 you can cover probably 90 % of the scenarios in the kind of work that you do really.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (34:06)
Yeah, and if I need to go a little bit wider, can just do a little pano.

Steve Vaughan (34:10)
Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. I do follow, I know how to say his name, but Mads Peter Iversen as well. Yeah, he is. And I know he swears by that lens, doesn't he, on YouTube as well. I guess one last thing just explore with you. I noticed on your website that you offer workshops. So just tell the listener a bit more about those.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (34:15)
Yes, he's great.

Yeah. So I do offer workshops, predominantly woodland photography at Cannock Chase. Now, yeah, the workshops that I've do, I've only done a few to be honest with you. don't, I don't tend to push it a great deal mainly due to time. But they are, they are out there tend to do this weekends. And what I do with my workshop clients is, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll stop and have a chat first about what they want to get from.

workshop that morning or that afternoon and we'll basically go into the woodland and we'll what I'll say to them first is you know we're in this area here it's an area that I know and I know there are certain compositions and I'll get them to talk to me about what they're seeing while they're there first just to see how in tune their kind of mind is to see what level they're sort of at and then obviously from there what I'll do is I'll walk them through what I'm seeing and try and sort of

Steve Vaughan (35:12)
Okay.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (35:28)
give them an indication of what compositions that are available basically.

Steve Vaughan (35:33)
Okay, and how long do they last?

Martin Hajdukiewicz (35:35)
So we have a four hour one that do and an eight hour one. So half day and a full day.

Steve Vaughan (35:39)
Well, I'd love to do that.

I'd love to learn a bit more about woodland photography and also to hang out in the canning chase would be cool as well. So you may have a customer here in the near future, probably outside of weddings season now, because we're going to start getting busy. We are getting busy over the next few weeks. So Martin, it's been great finding out more about yourself and your work. You've already mentioned there's a secret project on the way, which we're not going to talk about now. But what does the future hold for you? Do you see over the next couple of years?

Martin Hajdukiewicz (35:49)
Anytime you're free. Yeah, that's just

Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (36:06)
despite that, where to see your work going, where to see your YouTube channel going.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (36:10)
Yeah, so work wise, I'd say more of the same. I'm just enjoying what I'm doing as a hobby. I'm going to continue to put videos out there as and when I can build the community that we have already created with forms of photography and a lot more work will be going into the secret project. Hopefully moving forward. We're really excited for that. And I think

Steve Vaughan (36:29)
super.

Thank

Martin Hajdukiewicz (36:39)
My own channel is still gonna be there. I'm still gonna put videos out, but there's gonna be a lot of concentration on what we're working on.

Steve Vaughan (36:46)
Well, do come back and tell us more about it when it's when it's no longer a secret Martin. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining me today. And, you know, it's been great finding out more about what you do. I apply to join your Facebook group. So, you know, it'd be great to hang out in there as well. And yeah, I'd definitely be following the YouTube channel over the next few weeks and months to find out what's what's coming new. And if you've enjoyed this episode, dear listener, then don't forget to subscribe to the show that you'll get the podcast coming into your inbox then.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (36:51)
Absolutely.

Great stuff.

Steve Vaughan (37:16)
automatically and also don't forget to give us a review, hopefully a five star review on Spotify or Apple. does help us in lots of mysterious ways. And of course, although we don't have the following quite yet of Martin, we do now have a YouTube channel as well for the show where you'll be able to see the podcasts in video. So in this case, you'll be able to see Martin's amazing images as well as of us being on his website. And I will link to those in the show notes as well. Nick and I will be back again in a couple of weeks time until then.

Happy shooting out there and we'll talk to you soon.

Martin Hajdukiewicz (37:49)
Thanks, Steve.