Parish Photography with a Purpose

After years of taking parish photographs for websites and social media, I have some perspective on what photos best depict the parish, the people, and their ministry to the public. I divide those photos into two categories:

1. Photos for context
2. Photos that tell the story of the event

Some of the photos I take will be useful in the future for historical purposes.  Even now, I get requests for photos from specific groups or ministries that use them in telling their stories.

Photos for Context

Photos for context are the photos that locate or identify the community:

• The church and school (if you have one) during different times of the year
• The sanctuary during different liturgical seasons
• The baptismal font, confessionals, Holy Oils
• Stained glass windows, statues especially those depicting the parish patron, Mary and Joseph
• Special places such as Adoration Chapel, outdoor stations, a bell tower, a garden, a pavilion, etc.
• Current photos of the pastor and other pastoral staff

These photos can be used throughout the year. Having them on hand is very helpful. Usually when I take on a new parish client—I schedule a time to take as many of these as I can.

Event Photos

Photos that tell the story of an event.  I find that I am most successful in capturing the story of an event when I take time to make a list (mental or written) of the moments, the actions and the people that make up the story. For some events, I think through where I need to position myself to get the photo that I want. There will be some overview/environment pictures, but mostly specific photos of the people who are putting it on and those who are participating. To that end, I ask myself two questions:

1. What does someone who cannot be here want to see?

2. What do the people who are here want to remember?

People photos taken at an event are extremely popular on Facebook.  I try to focus on faces, eyes and smiles. Photos of people engaged in the event are the best.  I only post photos that a person would be happy to see.  If someone in the photo has their eyes closed or has an unflattering expression, I do not post that photo That’s true, too, when I take a group photo. If it is unflattering to one person, I do not post it. For this reason, I take multiple photos of groups—to assure that I get one I can use. 

Before I take people’s photos, I ask if I may take the photo for our parish website and Facebook.  I tell them that they can download their photo from the Facebook page. If someone objects to having their photo taken, I don’t take it, I smile and say something like “that’s okay, no problem, enjoy your day” and I move on to the next photo.

For some events-I create separate Facebook albums for different parts of the event.  Here are two examples:

Here is a link to one of the days of the parish festival

Here are photos from the 5K Race to benefit the local food bank and the ministry of the St. Vincent de Paul Society There is a separate album with the various individual winners.

In a future post, I will share some of the unexpected benefits of being the parish photographer and some suggestions for finding the person(s) who can do this ministry for your parish.

Your experiences, comments and questions are welcome.