(upbeat music) (camera clicking) - Hi, I'm Miss Penny from KidVision Pre-K and we're here today to spend a day with a photojournalist.

- Hi Penny.

I'm Al Diaz, a photojournalist with The Miami Herald.

- What does a photojournalist do?

- Well, I take photographs for the newspaper.

- What are your favorite photos to take?

- Well I like variety.

Every day I want something different.

So I do a lot of sporting events, I cover news, I do a lot of portraits.

- [Miss Penny] And you get to be right on the field, right where the players are.

- Yes, one of my most memorable experiences is covering the University of Miami at Florida State University.

They were playing in Tallahassee.

And on the field was your niece.

- Yes!

- Jillian.

And so I photographed her.

She's a Baton twirler And she would light up her batons on fire.

- [Miss Penny] She's wonderful.

- And we used that picture online.

It was great.

- That's fantastic.

So you get to see a lot of things besides just the football players on the field.

There's a lot of activity, a lot of action going on.

It must be really hard to get football players, or get a play, right in the middle of them responding.

- It helps to know the sports.

And my goal is to capture the decisive moment.

And the decisive moment is the peak of the action where, you know, if the ball's coming off the hand, it's gotta be right off the hand.

You don't want it five feet off the hand, you want it right off the tip of the fingers.

- So you have to be very observant and stay focused on where the ball is.

- [Al] Yes, and it helps to visualize what's gonna happen before it happens.

- What does your typical day look like?

- Well, sometimes my boss will call me, or I get an email the night before of what my assignment is.

And I can be photographing a sporting event or the President of United States.

I never know.

- [Miss Penny] It's exciting that you don't know what's happening each day.

- [Al] Yeah, it is.

And that's what I enjoy about my job.

It's the variety.

And so I'll read that and determine what I need to do.

- I'd love it if you'd take some action shots of me.

I could be your assignment and we can see how you set up.

- That'd be great, I'd love that.

- Me too.

(camera clicking) (upbeat music) - Well, this is some of the equipment we're gonna be using today.

- I see you have a camera on each lens.

Do the cameras and the lenses have to go together?

Can you mix them up?

- All the lenses are interchangeable with the cameras.

- Why would you use one camera rather than another one?

- If I'm at a football game, and I'm in the end zone, and the play starts way in the middle of the field, I'm using this lens.

This is my long lens telephoto.

- So you can be far away and still get someone like they're close up?

- Yes, they'll be right, real tight.

I can go from waist up and I could be 20 feet away.

And it'll be, I can just focus right on your face if I want to.

And as soon as they break away, catch a long bomb, they're coming closer to me, and now this lens is too tight.

So then I can switch to this camera and get 'em crossing the goal line, and scoring.

Yay!

And they all turn towards the end zone, and celebrating.

And that's an, if they get real close to me I grab the wide angle and I get 'em celebrating right after.

- So you wear all of these while you're at a game?

- Yes, I'll carry all of 'em.

I'll have, these two I interchange, and I'll have 'em in my pouch.

So I'll have one in the pouch, and then the three camera bodies I'll have.

This one'll be handheld with my monopod.

And then this one'll be on my right side, and this one will be on the left.

And depending on the action I can grab 'em real quickly, I don't wanna miss the moment.

- [Miss Penny] So you have to be really active as a photographer.

- Oh yeah, very active.

- And it's journalism because you're telling a story.

- Yes.

- [Miss Penny] You're telling the story of the football game.

- Absolutely.

Today we're gonna use this one to photograph Miss Penny.

- Okay.

- So right now I'm checking the light and my background.

I don't want any poles growing out of Miss Penny's head, so I have to check my background, make sure it's clean.

And I'll have a bright background, which would make her look dark.

And actually there's a cloud covering the sun right now, so it's perfect!

There she is.

It looks good.

Make sure my exposure's okay.

(camera clicking) So I have a zoom ring here that I can zoom in and out.

All right, one more time.

Let's see, I took several.

There you go.

(dynamic music) All right, so now that we've taken the photos we're gonna edit the pictures.

So I crop 'em, eliminate any distractions in the photo, and then I lighten and darken, and make sure your face is exposed properly.

- Why do you edit the photos?

- To get 'em ready for publication.

- That's great, then you can tell a nice, clear story.

- Yes, exactly.

This one looks nice.

So I'll put a red on that.

And I'm looking at all my selects.

So now I'm just gonna go back and I'm just gonna pick the red ones.

- So it's a process that you go through.

- Yes.

I opened up this picture, I selected this one, and now I'm gonna crop it so I can clean up the background.

So here's my crop mark, 'cause my crop tools, all my tools are on the left.

And I crop the picture.

And that kind of looks good, nice and clean.

And then I crop it.

And the exposure looks good, I can lighten it up a little bit.

See, bring that up little Open up the shadows a little.

And then I'm gonna hit my little action button here that I've already have saved, and hit to save it into a folder, my KidVision folder.

- Great.

- Okay, so I'm gonna select one other picture.

Let's open this up and let's get the crop tool and crop the picture, cleaned up the background.

- It's amazing all the things you can do to change a photograph and make it clearer.

- Yes, I crop for impact.

So there is, so I'd say use the same picture.

And as you see, I keep cropping tighter and tighter.

And so now I just see her face and her hands.

And so now that I've cropped that let's see what this looks like as a black and white picture.

So I'm gonna come over here and I'm gonna go to mode and hit grayscale.

And I'm gonna discard all the color.

And boom!

Now let's lighten it up a little bit.

And there we go, now it's black and white.

- [Miss Penny] Amazing.

- So this is what the photograph looks like right out of the camera, okay.

And then this is the first crop, my second crop.

Then I went to grayscale.

And then I lightened it up.

Miss Penny, would you like to see the picture?

- I'd love to.

- All right, come on over.

- That's amazing.

I actually look like I know how to throw a football.

Thank you very much, Al, for letting us spend the day with a photojournalist.

- Well, thank you Miss Penny for having me.

- It's amazing how you can tell a whole story through photographs.

- Well yes, I try to capture the light, the composition, and the decisive moment.

All coming together to tell a story in a single photograph, a compelling photograph.

- Your photos are compelling and they're wonderful.

You do a great job.

Thank you for spending the day with us.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Hi boys and girls, it's Miss Penny.

Put on your thinking caps.

It's time to learn a new word.

Camera.

A camera is a device for recording visual images in the form of photographs, film, or video.

What was that word?

- [Kids] Camera.

- Good job.

Camera bag.

A camera bag is a bag designed to carry photography equipment like cameras, lenses, and tripods.

What was that word?

- [Kids] Camera bag.

- Good job.

Camera lens.

A camera lens is a viewing device used with a camera.

Different lenses focus things in different ways.

What was that word?

- [Kids] Camera lens.

- Good job.

Photojournalist.

A photojournalist is someone who photographs, edits, and displays images to tell a story.

What was that word?

- [Kids] Photojournalist.

- Good job.

See you next time.