Trees in Florida are amazing!

This is a picture I took recently, and I love it so much.

 

 Every once in a while, you come across a tree that feels less like part of the landscape and more like a character within it, a silent elder with stories etched into its bark. This incredible tree, captured in the heart of Florida’s wilderness, is one of those rare giants. Its sprawling limbs twist and stretch with a confidence that only comes from surviving countless seasons of wind, rain, and sun. The curved trunk, thick roots, and moss-covered branches give it a sculptural presence, as if nature shaped it with deliberate artistry.

Florida is home to many of these remarkable trees, especially ancient live oaks. Unlike the straight, towering trees of colder climates, Florida’s oaks often grow wide and low, their branches bending with age and weight, creating dramatic shapes like the one in this photograph. The humid air, sandy soil, and subtropical climate create perfect conditions for them to thrive for centuries. Some live oaks in the state are believed to be over 500 years old, weathering storms and standing strong through Florida’s ever-changing landscape.

To truly capture the full beauty of this tree, this image was created using a technique where multiple photographs are stitched together. By taking several overlapping shots and blending them into a single frame, the final image preserves the tree’s immense size and intricate details in a way a single photo simply couldn’t. This method allows the viewer to experience the entire scene, its scale, texture, and atmosphere, with clarity and depth, almost as if standing there in person.

This tree feels like a gateway into another world, a reminder that beauty in nature often comes from resilience, adaptation, and time. It’s the kind of scene that makes you pause, breathe, and appreciate the quiet magic tucked away in Florida’s forests.

Capturing a tree is like capturing a soul. I sometimes imagine them as quiet humans, silent witnesses to the stories of our lives.

The Importance of the Right Shutter Speed

 Selecting the wrong shutter speed can result in blurry photos or motion blur. 

The other day I was at a local park looking for birds to photograph, and accidentally I changed the ISO setting from Auto to ISO 125. I didn’t notice the change at first because it was a sunny day, and this setting combined with Aperture Priority was giving me shutter speeds of around 1/60 to 1/125, so the pictures in the viewfinder looked well exposed to me. What I didn’t notice was that the pictures were not as sharp as they should have been.

When I’m shooting wildlife, I use Aperture Priority and Auto ISO, and I set the minimum shutter speed to 1/500. This shutter speed helps ensure that my 100–400mm lens captures sharp images most of the time. It doesn’t matter that both my lens and camera have image stabilization; I’m not using a tripod, and that introduces movement that can cause motion blur.

This mistake cost me a few pictures, which I deleted because they were not sharp enough. The moral of this real-life story is to check your settings at the start of your shoot—especially if you are getting paid for it.

 

The above picture could have been sharper if it were not for this error. You can notice the blur at the tips of the wings.

P.S. And people still think that a good camera and lens will always result in good pictures. But if you don’t know how to use those tools, they won’t result in good pictures at all. 

From last weekend

This last weekend I decided to visit a park that I do not go to often because for some reason I never have too much luck getting good bird pictures there. But the place is beautiful, as you can see from these pictures.

Click Fanatic, an addiction

At one point in my life, I fell in love with computers, to the point where I switched careers at the age of 33 and began working in the field that still pays my bills. Twenty years later, I fell in love again, this time becoming addicted to photography.

I may have called this blog Click Addict. Seriously, photography can be addictive. It's like you become addicted to the sound of the shutter. Then you have the post-editing part of photography, you’re dying to get home and start editing your pictures to make them as close to perfection as possible. When the whole process is finished, you feel a happiness that’s indescribable.

 I started this addiction as a hobby a little more than 10 years ago, a little before the time when our first grandson opened his eyes for the first time. While the hobby was meant to be about wildlife and nature, I have to blame him for introducing me to portrait photography. Then our second grandson came into our lives, and my addiction got stronger. 

Liam is a born model; he knows how to pose without being given instructions. This is key because if you ask him to pose, in fact, if you ask any of our grandsons, he’ll give you one of those “Schwarzenegger smiles” from the movie Terminator, ruining your picture. So I adopted a paparazzo-style approach, going around taking pictures without asking anyone to pose. 

By the time when our 3rd grandson came into this Earth, I was already sick beyond all possible salvation.  

I do not know if Leo learnt from Liam, but he is always ready for a candid picture. The above picture is an example, he noticed Liam posing, and he went right away to claim the protagonism. Of course, I could not miss the opportunity. 

When I gave up on any chance of sanity on my part, then came sports photography! Nature was not enough. My portrait pictures of our grandsons were not enough. I had to shoot 2,000 pictures in a single sports event to calm down my addiction!

 

So here I am, thinking about future events, new places in nature to shoot thousands more pictures, and looking for ways to pay for my addiction.

Having fun with AI

 Today you can do anything with AI, including having fun. A good example is these pictures putting my grandsons on the cover page of TIME magazine! 

Canon R6 Mark III - Jared Polin's review

Well, the Canon R6 Mark III has been released, and many have shared their reviews online. Personally, I believe it’s a great camera, without a doubt. It’s an improvement over both the Mark II and Mark I. If money is not a concern and you’re a fan of the R6 series, I highly recommend getting it. However, since I’m not in a position to spend a lot of money, I don’t feel compelled to trade my R6 Mark I for this camera. I agree with Jared’s suggestion that you should upgrade your camera when you feel it’s limiting your capabilities. But for me, the Canon R6 is still serving me well and doesn’t need an upgrade. 

My favorite pictures from last weekend

  One more time, I'm confronted with the task of picking what pictures I like from my weekend shooting. This weekend started with a lot of landscape pictures on Saturday, and that changed on Sunday when some water birds came from the north, maybe pushed by the cold front coming down to us next Tuesday. So let's start with a landscape picture.

From the birds pictures I particularly love these two.

Of course, a good weekend can't end without a squirrel portrait!