Year 10 Art and Photography Trip to Colchester Zoo 22/11/19

On Friday 22nd November, the department which includes Art and Photography visited Colchester Zoo. The visit was to provide inspiration for the pupils first project, Animals.  For the Photography pupils it was a perfect opportunity to test their understanding of the camera, the ISO, shutter speed and aperture and in particular their understanding of depth of field.

The following is narration  by one of the photography student;

 “When we arrived we were given a talk by Andy, who works in the zoo’s education about animals department. He led us a through a PowerPoint that showed what people in medieval and early periods of human history thought animals looked like. We were then told what people use certain parts of animals, for example, traditional medicine and rugs.  After Andy had given us this talk we had the opportunity to take photos of the exhibits at the front of the room, and for the art students to draw some of them as well.

There were objects such as skulls, bones and animal skins. We then split up into our smaller groups and went out into the zoo. We went around the zoo seeing the different animals, such as tigers, lions, elephants, red pandas and rhinos. We took photos of the animals, we had to take close ups of the animals within their enclosures and full body shots. We had to get 5 successful photographs of each animal which were to later inspire our respective projects.”

Some of the pupils were visiting the zoo for the very first time; so it was a useful, fun and enjoyable day for all.