It's not about the equipment in Belvoir photography class

Photographers, like any artist, have many approaches and styles in their creativity. But in order to master their medium, they must first learn the basics.

And that’s exactly what nine Fort Belvoir aspiring photographers set out to do Saturday at their first class with Luke Pinneo at the Kawamura Arts and Crafts Center.

"The good thing about basics is just that … they are basic," said Pinneo. "It’s about getting through the basics quickly to move on to becoming more creative."

Pinneo walked the students through an hour’s worth of famous photographs and pictures by famous photographers. He asked the students to identify emotion, movement, color, and general appeal in each photo to open a dialogue of photographic elements.

"You want to make photos that are visually arresting," he said. "Not every photo has to have a lot of data … but you want it to be interesting, remember light, color, gesture, and climax."

Photograph, from the Greek word phos-gráphein, which means writing with light. Understanding that light is what creates the pictures, was the first lesson Pinneo taught. From there he moved on to uses of color to convey emotion, movement, and message. Then there’s the lesson of gesture, which gives photographs more context, followed by climax, "the ah-ha, the significance of the photo," Pinneo said.

"It’s always about creativity though," he added. "On the creative side there are no rules – no rigid restrictions telling you not to do this or that."

Of course, he echoed the idea several times that before creativity has to be a sound foundation of basics. He worked through terminology, from aperture to shutter speed and ISO, students began to understand what each camera function means to the development of a photo.

Most of the nine students’ primary issues, as discussed in introductions, were dealing with camera functions. By the time they left the first day of the four-week class, they began to understand the basics. Over the next three classes the students will be able to work with their camera, upload and submit their photos for class critique, and even have several published in the Eagle

– check back to see all they’ve learned as portrayed in their photos.