How to Organize and Produce a Church Photo Directory for free
Creating a church photo directory has many benefits.
- It is a great aid for pastors and families to remember who is who
- The entire congregation can benefit from photo directories, in that they can keep in touch with other people easier, and learn about others in the community.
- Staff members find the photo directories invaluable in that they can add notes to certain people, and then visually remember what role(s) those individuals play within the Church
Producing a photo directory is rather easy, but here are a few things you should do first.
- Talk with your priest/pastor/bishop about organizing a photo directory shoot, and organize one day when you will do nothing but take pictures. You need the help of the priest so that he/she can announce the photo shoot several weeks in advance, so that everyone can make sure that they can attend. As well, of course you want everyone wearing their Sunday Best!
- Find someone to take pictures. You can either find someone within the congregation, or hire a professional photographerAdvantages of in-house photography is that you can save some money, i.e., it’s free. Plus, nowadays, pretty much any digital camera can take the kind of quality pictures that you need.
- However, in some cases you might want a bit higher quality if you can’t find someone within your congregation. Professional photographers generally know how to bring out the best smiles in individuals, plus know what kind of lighting is necessary to create the best looking pictures. So you should decide whether someone within the congregation has the expertise you need to take high quality photographs, or look at hiring someone else.
- Send out an e-mail reminder to remind individuals and families of the photo shoots, or announce it several weeks in advance, every Sunday.
Now that you have the photographs, if you’d like to create a photo directory for free, you can do it this way. (Article copyright ABCFastDirectory)
Free Method
- Use something like Microsoft Word (or any wordprocessing application such as OpenOffice)
- Create a table, and divide the table into sets of 2 columns. (For example, if you wanted a photograph on the left hand side, and text on the right, you would make it two columns. If you wanted two sets side by side, then you would make it four columns)
- Cut & paste the photographs into Microsoft Word. Resize them so they fit, and add the information.
- Make sure you organize everything alphabetically!
- Add pertinent information, such as the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the families you wish to add.
Alternatively, if time is important to you, and you want something that you can edit easily later on down the road, you might consider a professional photo directory application. Advantages include the following:
- It is much faster, you just import the photographs, and then the software automatically resizes it.
- Easy to edit/make changes – If you add new members, you can generally just insert the member where you want them to appear. Doing it manually might take a while, because you would need to shift everything around.
- Many other uses. Software can allow you to keep track of extra information (phone numbers, e-mail addresses, etc), customize the look & feel of your directory, plus much more. Doing it by hand would take some time
- Plus many more benefits, depending on your needs
Creating a church photo directory is a pretty simple and straightforward process. Just make sure you organize a time and date with your priest/pastor/bishop to take the photographs. Then, download all the photographs to a computer, import them into a wordprocess or a photo directory application. Organize it, print it off, and then enjoy all the compliments you get for a beautiful photo directory!
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