Field of Mars Excursion

What a wonderful day for an excursion. The sun was out and although it was a little windy the breeze was lovely. We started with our walk down to the Field of Mars Reserve and the Environment Education Centre (EEC) flanked by Mr Smyth at the front and myself at the back with our beautiful fluorescent vests.

Arriving at the EEC we were met by two teachers who took us through what we were doing today. It was so exciting to hear that we were going to be explorers/photographers with an iPad and would be taking photos of nature that we would turn into a book using the app, book creator. Straight away there were nods, hand grabs and glances as friends tried to plan who their partners would be. 

Before splitting into pairs we found out about different sorts of photographs and artistic rules that we were going to have to use when taking our photos. We needed to think about our subject when taking photos and where we were placing it in our photo. The themes we needed to think about when taking our photos were: ant's eye view, use of light, rule of thirds, leading lines, textures, macro, looking down into, looking up, colour, framed, pattern and contrast.

We were allowed to walk around the Field of Mars EEC with our partner to take photos that fit each of those themes. Some of us saw an eel, ibises and even a water dragon, but most of us took photos of flowers, lichen, trees, ferns, the river and moss. We took turns taking photos and helped each other take the perfect shot.

After lunch we came back in and played around with book creator to create our 'nature book'. We had to create a title page and then also chapter titles using the themes we were using to take our photos in the first place. We had to choose three photos for each theme and were allowed to edit the photos using the filters that were available.

Finally we had to choose our favourite photo which we had printed for us and framed. Wow! What an absolutely amazing day!