Shapes are everywhere
From once-sided circles to eight-sided octagons, everything has a shape. Back in Gunnersbury Park, you went searching to find some shapes around the Horseshoe Pond. How many did you find?
Some shapes appear a lot in the world around us, while others are a bit rarer. When you add in symmetry, things can get really interesting! Are you ready to test your shape skills in our quiz?
Your snaps
While out and about, you were set a challenge to take some artistic photographs. How did you get on?
Photographers take pictures of just about everything. To help them describe their pictures, it can be helpful to group different types of photographs together. Some of the most common types of photography include:
- Landscape photography: Photographs taken outside, like in Gunnersbury Park. Often these are big views of the countryside or of nature, but can include features made by people too.
- Wildlife photography: Photographs of animals and plants, like birds on the Horseshoe Pond or the plants and trees around it.
- Portrait photography: Photographs of people, like your family.
- Architectural photography: Photographs of buildings, like of the Orangery next to the Horseshoe Pond in Gunnersbury Park.
Take our quiz to see if you can work out which category some photographs taken at Gunnersbury Park fall into.
Superstar photographers
Fancy finding out a bit more about photographers? Click on the names below to read about two who became well known for their landscape and wildlife photography.
Find out about landscape photographer Fay Godwin
Name: Fay Godwin
Job: Landscape photographer
Born: 1931 in Berlin, Germany 🇩🇪
Fun fact: Fay was scared of dogs, bulls and thunderstorms.
Born in Germany and then going to nine different school in countries all over the world, Fay eventually came to live in London when she was 27 years old.
Fay taught herself about photography, starting by taking pictures of her family. She loved walking and became best known for her landscape photography, or photographs of the countryside.
Many of her photographs were taken in black and white and showed hints of how people had changed the landscape, through the odd shaped blocks in dry stone walls or a lone building stood atop a hill.
Shapes were often really important elements in her photographs, like in the picture below where the circle of a roll of hay contrasts with the pointed angles of the stones behind.
Although most of her photos are of rural (or countryside) places, Fay also spotted interesting sights in towns and cities too. Her eye was caught by the shapes in a window, a sole leaf that landed on a concrete path, or even a bright red car wash.
You can see some more of Fay’s photographs in the British Library online collection.
Find out more about wildlife photographer Heather Angel
Name: Heather Angel
Job: Wildlife photographer
Born: 1941 in Fulmer, England 🏴
Fun fact: One of her best-selling photographs is of mouldy bread. Ewwww.
Heather’s love for the natural world began with her grandmother telling her the names of the wildflowers they found while walking in Suffolk. After learning about animals at university during a zoology degree, Heather began taking photographs of sea creatures.
She was soon being asked to take pictures of lots of different types of nature, all over the world. Sometimes Heather photographs pandas rolling in snow, puffins flying back to their nests, or dolphins leaping out of the sea. Equally, her collection of photos is full of plants, flowers, mini beasts, and the shapes and patterns of nature. You don’t have to travel thousands of miles to take an amazing picture!
One of her most recent projects has been photographing pollinators, like bees and butterflies, and the flowers they visit. You can find out more about pollination in the Wildflower Meadow Activity.
If you want to be a wildlife photographer, Heather’s top tips are:
- As well as photographs, you might like to take video clips of unusual animal behaviour to post online
- Be patient! Sometimes to get a great photograph of an animal you have to wait a long time.
- Write about your photographs too, describing what you’ve taken a photograph of and if it has an interesting story to go with it.
- Don’t give up!
You can see some more of Heather’s photographs on her website.
Frame it!
Now you’ve learned a little bit more about photography, are you ready to put your favourite photograph you took in Gunnersbury Park on display in a frame?
Your photography
Where next?
There are plenty of other activities waiting for you, both in the park and at home.
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