Communicate God's Love Through Online Photos

According to Walt Disney, “Of all our innovations for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language.”Your church needs to share photos online as it communicates the Good News.

From childhood, we learn to communicate by looking at pictures and associating words and phrases to describe what we see. As youth and adults, we store photos of family and friends in albums to record our lives.

Pictures evoke emotions and inspire others without any narratives.

Indeed, “a picture is worth ten thousand words!”

Anyone can use a digital camera to capture a moment and share it with others in cyberspace within a few clicks. Online photo sharing is a free and easy way to edit, organize and distribute your digital pictures publically or privately.

Some of the most popular photo sharing sites include Flickr, Picasa, Shutterfly and Webshots.

Although most online photo sharing services are free, you must register and create a user profile.

The site allows you to edit and categorize pictures, assign keywords to them (tags), and arrange them in albums. Share your photos with everyone or specific people.

With online photo sharing, represent your church’s ministries visually. As people do not read web pages, but rather scan them for important information.

They are more apt to linger on your website or online photosharing site if you have engaging photographs.

Many churches display a photo gallery or link to an online photo-sharing site to provide a visual story. Others use photographs in conjunction with social networking and blogging. Most arrange their images by categories, such as youth mission trips, fellowship gatherings and special worship experiences.

Follow some basic privacy guidelines for sharing photos online. Get permission from the people in your photos before you publish them on the Internet.

Generally, if you take a picture in a public place, no permission is needed. However, it is always a good idea. Either way, do not provide identifying information with the photo, such as people’s names or the location.

This is especially important with images of children and youth.

Instead, identify the event or activity in general.

Always give your photograph an “ALT tag,” a few description words that can be read to someone who uses a screen reader due to impaired vision.