Energize - Angling 4 Success

A4S PHOTOGRAPHY MODULES CURRENTLY AVAILABLE IN:

Bedfordshire, Leicestershire, Peterborough, Norfolk

PHOTOGRAPHY & ANGLING4SUCCESS

TERRY RICHARDSON - A4S PHOTOGRAPHY TUTOR ( www.flickr.com/organicimage/sets ) by energizeimages.

Photography is an integral activity within the Angling4Success Course and provides an extra dimension to the outdoor experiential learning. It includes:

• Digital Photography tuition
• Digital Enhancement tuition, using Photoshop Elements (subject to IT skills)
• Compilation and publishing of a portfolio of photographs on the web

During each session, students are encouraged to explore the surroundings of the lakes and capture elements of the natural setting. Students are given a blank canvas to collect their own observations and create their very own portfolio. Using Photoshop Elements, students learn how to digitally enhance photographs before publishing their collections on Angling4Success's flickr.com photo viewing website.

Young students consistently surprise themselves with the results of their own photography. By completing a portfolio of photos and publishing to the web, students enjoy the feeling of achieving a complete project that can be shared with others.

Some of the photographs taken by students and of the students in action can be found at:

www.flickr.com/energizeimages/sets

SO WHY DO FISHING AND PHOTOGRAPHY COMPLEMENT EACHOTHER SO WELL?

“There are definite similarities between angling and photography, especially when photographing wildlife. In each activity, the student develops:

Patience and tenacity
Respect, knowledge and appreciation of the natural environment
An ability to anticipate and pre-empt the next moves of the - mostly unpredictable - chosen target
The skill of strategising how best to capture the chosen subject
The reflexes to strike at the right moment, whether with camera or with rod and reel.

Both fishing and photography combine similar skills to help achieve tangible results, encourage personal growth and secure an affinity with the natural environment for the future.”

Terry Richardson, A4S Photography Tutor

On a very basic level, whenever a student is no longer engaging with the angling, photography provides an opportunity to stretch the legs, look around the lakes and take in all the flora and fauna that a lakeside setting provides.

RECONNECTING WITH NATURE

From an environmental awareness perspective, the course serves to bridge the knowledge gap for young people who spend precious little time in the great outdoors and who were proven by a recent National Trust survey to be far removed from everyday instances of nature. Amazingly, the survey highlighted:

"One in three cannot identify a magpie, one of the UK’s most common and most distinctive birds
1 in 2 couldn’t tell the difference between a bee and a wasp
Just 53 per cent could correctly identify an oak leaf – the national tree and a powerful symbol of England
Only 47 per cent of children correctly identified a barn owl
1 in 3 failed to recognise a Red Admiral, Britain’s best-known butterfly"

INTERFACE WITH I.T.

Regardless to what degree participants of the Angling4Success course have learned I.T. skills, the digital photography, photo enhancement and publishing on the web provide interaction with computers, centred around the student's own creations. This helps dispel any fear of/aversion to computing and provides bite-size chunks of computing knowledge to turn a few photos into an online photographic portfolio that can be shared with others.

The goal is not to create world class photographers or to delve too deeply into the technical side of photography, but to:

Open the students eyes to the natural surroundings on their doorstep
Appreciate the natural environment and wildlife
Encourage creativity from each individual from a blank canvas