Take the Shot Flip through a magazine and take a close look at its photographs If you’re reading a nature or wildlife magazine you’ll find pictures of exotic animals and stunning landscapes If you’re looking through a sports magazine you’ll see photos of basketball players frozen in midair for a slam dunk or baseball outfielders stretching out their bodies to snag a ball Photojournalists travel to these locations to tell stories for readers Sometimes they take images that record history such as newly elected U S presidents taking an oath before they start work in the Oval Office Photojournalists capture events and scenery from all over the world and send them to magazines and websites for publication 6
Photojournalists know they only have a few seconds to take a picture of an important moment They quickly make calculations before even composing the shot Photographers adjust camera settings to account for several factors such as the aperture of their lens the speed of the camera’s shutter and the sensitivity of the camera’s sensor to light All three together determine exposure which ensures the photo is not too dark or too bright Today’s cameras have easy-to-read displays that show information like shutter speed and aperture to help photographers select the correct exposure 7
STEAM in Action A photographer adjusts their camera’s aperture setting to control how much light enters the lens The aperture of a lens has a lot in common with the pupil of the human eye And you can watch how your pupils change depending on the light Take a magnifying glass and put it on a handheld mirror Hold it close to your face until you see your eyes focused and enlarged in the magnifying glass Now use a small flashlight and shine it directly into the pupil of your eye What do you see Bounce the flashlight off the mirror What changed Go into a dim room Close one eye and look into your open eye What’s the difference in your pupil in the dark room compared to when you pointed the flashlight into your eye The pupil of your eye is similar to the aperture of a camera lens shrinking and opening depending on the brightness of light 8
Photojournalists can also get creative with camera settings to freeze action or slow it down to show motion Photographers use math to get the settings just right Controlling shutter speed employs fractions For example setting a camera’s speed to 1 100 means the shutter opens and closes in one-one hundredth of a second That’s fast That shutter speed can take a landscape photo showing puffy clouds overhead When a photographer wants to illustrate motion the camera’s shutter speed settings are slowed in one-half or one third increments Cameras can actually keep their shutters open for 30 seconds or longer A shutter speed set for that long will show those puffy clouds moving across the sky STEAM Fast Fact Modern digital cameras have shutter speeds that go as fast as 1 8,000 of a second That’s so fast you can take a picture of a drop of water floating in midair 9
