About The Trump 'Bullet Photo'

Sorry to break the news to the conspiracy-mongers and swallowers.

When I saw how quickly gullible people on social media sites swallowed conspiracy theories—from the right and left—about the attempted assassination of President Trump, I was reminded of the lyrics of a spunky song from “Barnum,” a Broadway musical about P. T. Barnum, of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus fame:

There is a sucker born every minute.
Each time the second hand sweeps to the top,
Like dandelions out they pop,
Their ears so big, their eyes so wide,
And though I feed ‘em bona fide baloney,
With no truth in it,
Why, you can bet I’ll find some rube to buy my corn,
‘Cause there’s a sucker born every minute,
And I’m referring to the minute you was born.

From leftists, the worst of these theories is that the assassination was a fake, that Trump smeared himself with ketchup or some such, and that even if Trump’s ear was injured, it was because of something other than a bullet.

From conservatives, the worst is that one or more people in the Secret Service and White House knew the would-be assassin would be at the rally, and they deliberately let him take his shot.

The leftists’ theories have been sufficiently debunked by the famous photo of the bullet whizzing past Trump after hitting him in the ear, by the fact that the would-be assassin’s shots killed rally-goer Corey Comperatore and wounded two other men, and by videos of the attack, the statement of Trump’s doctor, photos of the would-be assassin’s lifeless body after being shot by the Secret Service, and Secret Service and FBI testimony before the House Judiciary Committee recently), thus they deserve no further attention.

As for the conservatives’ theory about a government conspiracy to commit murder, suffice it to say for now that suspicion, which is reasonable, given everything else the Biden administration has done and is still doing, is not the same as evidence. And evidence is not necessarily proof.

So, today, I’ll address only the preposterous theory that the person who took the photo of the bullet (to be precise, its vapor trail) whizzing past Trump after hitting him was in on a murder conspiracy, so he was in the right place, at the right time, with his camera adjusted the right way, knowing when the bullet was coming.

As a friend said in another context, people should “never attribute to conspiracy that which can be explained by incompetence.” And, to that, I’ll add, “or by a combination of exceptional competence and luck.”

Exceptional competence because the photographer in question is Pulitzer Prize-winner Doug Mills, a 40-plus-year professional who works for the New York Times. Not some internet conspiracy-theory purveyor or swallower whose only experience taking photos is with his smart phone.

How Mills did it

I was a Combat Cameraman in the military, so I know at least this much (and not much more) about how cameras work:

To take a properly-exposed photo requires (1) the right amount of light entering the camera (dictated by how wide the aperture—the opening in the lens—is open), (2) for the right amount of time (dictated by the shutter speed—how long the window in the camera body is open), (3) with the camera’s light sensitivity adjusted to the right setting. Those three elements have to be in balance. If there’s more of any one, there has to be less of one or both of the others to compensate.

In the old days, if you wanted to make sure a photo of someone was not blurred, if the person moved or you couldn’t hold the camera perfectly still, you would usually set the shutter to be open for 1/250th of a second, or 1/500th in more extreme cases.

But modern professional digital cameras can have much higher shutter speeds. As shown in Mills’ metadata from his bullet photo, his Sony camera’s shutter was set to 1/8000th of a second.

I was curious about that, so, because I’m not up-to-speed on the capabilities of professional-grade digital cameras available today, I stopped by my home city’s premier camera store to ask my friend who works there for the low-down. Here’s what he told me:

When modern, professional-grade digital cameras are set to 1/8000th of a second, they can take 20 or more photos per second. Professional photographers working for major media organizations will often set their cameras to do that, because their clients/employers want to be able to go through thousands of photos of a high-profile event, to be able to pick the “right” one.

In the case of the Trump rally, the New York Times would have wanted to cherry-pick the one photo that captured Trump’s most interesting facial expression or hand gesture. So, to be able to take the most photos possible per second, thus the most photos in total, Mills likely set his camera to the highest speed the lighting conditions allowed with the camera’s aperture and light-sensitivity settings.

Trump’s rally had bright sunlight, so Mills set his camera to 1/8000th, with the aperture opened to f/1.6, with, as he explains in this interview, his camera’s light sensitivity (ISO) set to 50.

Even so, some people still claim there’s something suspicious about the photo. But as another friend said in another context, “you can’t fix stupid.”

Copyright © Mark Overstreet 2024