Editor’s Note: “Let’s Talk Photography” will run exclusively in Tuesday’s edition of The Post-Journal beginning this Fall. Until then, this column will run weekly as space allows.

Alright, are we having fun talking about photography yet? I sure hope so!

Last week we got all confused over Dynamic Symmetry so let’s dial it down a little bit and talk about some basics. I’d like to begin by asking you one question. Think about your photography routine and tell me; what is it that you are photographing? It’s okay, you can pause for a moment and give it some thought.

Are you photographing landscapes? Portraits? Are creating art using smoke and lights? (Head’s up, that’ll be a future article.) No matter what you are pointing your camera toward, you are always photographing the same thing light!

That’s right, every image that you create begins with light and how it’s reflected off the surfaces of the objects in front of you. When you snap a photo, you are either trying to capture light or the lack thereof. Understanding that one principal will help speed up the way you learn your camera.

Now that you understand what you’re photographing, let’s take a minute to learn how your camera does it.

Every camera uses three basic mechanisms to capture the light. The first mechanism, and easiest to understand, is the Shutter. When you hit the button you tell the camera to open then close the shutter so the light in front of your camera can enter through the lens and hit the sensor. In the past, the light would hit the film which would eventually become the negative. Today’s digital cameras have a flat, light sensitive surface called a sensor that records the light information and interprets it as a photo.

The shutter consists of two panels called “curtains.” The whole thing works like this: imagine sitting at a theater and the curtains are closed. Only, instead of them being closed and meeting in the middle of the stage, imagine they met on the far right side of the stage. When you hit the button, the first curtain (front curtain) opens up and slides to the left of the stage revealing the theater stage or the movie screen. Once the front curtain gets close to the other side and the screen is almost fully revealed, the right curtain (rear curtain) begins to follow to the left hiding the stage or screen. This is exactly how light is exposed to the sensor. The speed in which the front curtain opens and the rear curtain follows is called your shutter speed.

Your camera’s settings allow you to change that speed in fractions of a second. So, if you set your camera to 1/250 then you are telling the camera to open and close the curtains in 1/250th of a second. If you set your camera to 3-inches, then you are telling it to take three seconds to complete the task. Now, close your eyes and then blink them open and closed really fast. Remember what you were able to see. Next, close your eyes and blink them open, hold them open for a little longer, then close them. Were you able to see more? That’s because you are letting in more light the longer you hold your eyelids open.

Therefore, the longer you allow the shutter to stay open, the greater amount of light your camera will record and the brighter your image will be. If you hold it open too long, then your image will start to turn all white because there’s too much light coming in. The faster you open and close your shutter, the less light you will allow in and the darker your image will be. Too fast makes the image turn black.

The second mechanism is inside the lens of the camera and it’s called the Aperture. The easiest way to think about the aperture is to think about your eye. When the doctor checks your eyes by shining a light into them and watching the pupil. When your eye is getting a lot of light then the pupil in the center of your eye closes down and gets really small, therefore restricting the amount of light that it is letting in. When there is little light, or even darkness, the pupil opens up and becomes a large hole that allows more light in so you can begin to see things more clearly.

That’s exactly what’s going on in your camera. The setting on your camera is referred to as the f-stop. We won’t get into the techy stuff today, but this f-stop is represented by numbers like these: 1.4, 2.8, 5.6, 8, 11, 22, etc. The lower the number, the larger the opening in the aperture. The higher the number, the smaller the opening. I know, it’s a little backwards, but I promise we’ll go into more detail in a later discussion. Aperture also has a direct relation to how much is in focus in your shot. The smaller the number, the less that’s in focus, the higher the number, the more you’ll have in focus.

The final mechanism is the ISO. Very simply, this is how sensitive the sensor is to light. This one is the easiest to remember; the lower the number, the least sensitive and the higher the number, the more sensitive. In bright light, keep the ISO low. In low light, make it more sensitive by setting it higher.

Congratulations, you’ve just learned the Exposure Triangle! Later, we’ll talk about how to use the three to create a balanced exposure.

Until then, happy shooting!

Is there a topic that you’d like to learn more about? Send feedback, share your photos, or offer topic suggestions to talkphotos@ecklof.com. If you’re looking for a place to connect with local photographers in Chautauqua County, search for the group “Shoot ‘n Share Chautauqua” on Facebook.