Why Photography is Still Important to Your Online Presence

[Tom Palin] Today we're going to talk about how you can still utilize photos and photography in your church or your ministry. Are you ready? Because it's time. you're listening to the church digital sidekick podcast part of the tcd podcast network hey heroes my name is tom palin this is the church digital sidekick podcast this is the podcast where i bring on ministry leaders and we talk about how you can do ministry more effectively in this very digital and online world and today i'm bringing back my friend ben stapley onto the podcast ben and i've been on the well ben's been on the podcast a number of times And he's always got great insights, whether it's digital stuff or leadership stuff. And today we're going to talk about photography. I know he's a big into video, but he's also big into photography. And so today we're going to talk about how you cannot forget about photography. Video is important. It's great. We need it. But we also need photos too. And why do we need them? And how can we utilize them? That's what we're talking about today. But before we get into that, I do want to highlight thechurch.digital. At thechurch.digital, we have tons of podcasts. We have tons of blogs. We have tons of resources. We have tons of coaching. And it's all designed to help you in your online ministry, whether it's online only. digital, where it's a combination of online and digital, or whether it's metaverse ministry. We've got lots of stuff for you, and we would love for you to check out thechurch.digital. It's really going to help you out and really encourage you and give you insights that will help you move your ministry to that next level. So check out thechurch.digital today. All right, without any further ado, let's get into the interview with Ben Stapley talking about photography. All right, with me right now is my friend Ben Stapley. Ben, how are you? [Ben Stapley] I'm doing great, Tom. Thank you so much for having me on. We haven't talked in a while, but it always feels like we start from the, I don't know, start where we picked up last. So it's great to talk with you again. [Tom Palin] Yeah, I mean, it is. Whenever we get together, we always have great conversations. And I am tracking you on social media. I mean, you are very active on Twitter. So I love just seeing what you're up to and just seeing all the stuff you're sharing. So it's great to catch up with you today. [Ben Stapley] Yes, looking forward to this conversation. [Tom Palin] Okay, so before we get into the actual conversation, why don't you update people on who you are and what you've been doing? Again, I know who you are. You've been on the podcast a number of times. So just give everyone a quick refresher. [Ben Stapley] Yeah, I've been in ministry for about 20 years now, and I've been moved around to a couple of churches, worked at a number of mega churches on executive teams. Currently, I'm serving as the executive pastor at the Life Christian Church in West Orange, New Jersey. In addition to that, I got a chance to help church leaders like yourself in your community. by sharing on podcasts speaking at conferences and coaching individuals and teams so that's a quick overview of myself and a quick plug if you find out want to find out more go to benstapley.com but that's a quick overview of who i am and the journey gods took me on so far Yeah, you're Canadian too. You'll hear some of the accent. I don't know if some of it has eked out already. As a good Canadian, I will apologize for that and apologize to our listeners. [Tom Palin] I played hockey a little bit in high school, and we had a Canadian coach, and he would always say A. You know, he'd say A a lot. [Ben Stapley] Yes, we are known for doing that, yes. [Tom Palin] That's great. All right, well, we're not going to talk about Canadians today. We're going to talk about photography. And so some of the stuff that we're obviously seeing, you and I are very active on social media and whatnot, is that video is dominating. Whereas Instagram used to be the power player for photography, now they're pushing video more and more, and all platforms are pushing video. But there's really something still to be said for photography. So I want to get into just the importance of photography and having good photos for your church in this very video-driven world that we're living in. So why don't you start us off then, talk about the power of photography today. [Ben Stapley] yeah and you i love the way you're framing this conversation not only by itself but in contrast to other mediums like video in particular because at the end of the day each each artistic discipline has pros and cons to it none of them it's perfect none of them is the is the best form of communication sometimes the written word sometimes the graphics sometimes the video sometimes the photo is the best the key is understanding the pros and cons of each artistic discipline and communication form and then when to apply it because if not you're right you know everyone else is doing video i guess i need to do video and spend a lot of money doing video well that's not always sometimes it's the case not always the case sometimes it's photo so that's that's my first caveat even before we jump into the conversation the biggest picture is understanding how they work, and then when to use them. The second thing is I'm a fan boy of video. I started my career as a video producer in television. So we're going to do a comparison here between photos and video. But at the end of the day, you're right. Video does have a lot of power, big proponent of it. But I know that's not the conversation here. So I just want to put that out there. Still team video as well, Tom. Don't try to get that twisted. [Tom Palin] Thanks. I appreciate that. I didn't know you were a video producer back in the day. [Ben Stapley] Yes, in television and news. And so I may turn this conversation around and start interviewing you at some point because it's in my blood. I can't get away from it. [Tom Palin] Oh, no, this is my podcast. I interview you. No. Okay. All right. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about photography. How would you encourage us? [Ben Stapley] Yeah, so I know you were in some of the lead up to this conversation. One of the things you wanted to push into was, hey, what does it look like in contrast to photo versus video? And for me, there's kind of five reasons why I would say photo is at times better than video. And I'll run through it really quickly. If you want to pause me at any point, go for it. Or you can just respond at the end of the laundry list to the five reasons why photo is at times better than video. But the first one is it's lower effort. So when it comes to video, you need to be good at the AV and L. The audio, make sure it sounds good. The video, the visual aspect of it, make sure it's framed right. And then the lighting that's needed to get a decent video. So you need all those. When it comes to photo, you just need, really, you just need the V. You just need the visual aspect of it. There's some lighting that's needed as well. But at the end of the day, the bar for entry is lower, which means you can have more people participating in that artistic discipline. That's why it's better than video at times. Lower effort. Next thing, lower cost. If you need the AV and L, each of those components has a cost contributed towards it. Probably the biggest cost would be the visual, the video side of it, the body, the lens, but video needs lighting, video needs audio. Photography doesn't need that. So again, a lower bar for entry in terms of the experience and then the cost. And then higher. So those are some lower things. Some higher. You have a higher application method with photo. And what I mean by that is when you show videos, what do you need to show videos? You need two key things. You need a screen and you need, generally speaking, you need a speaker system. Unless it's a silent film, which I don't know about you. I don't know the last time I've watched a silent film. You're going to need a screen and a speaker system. what do you need for photos well you need some type of screen but you don't need the speaker system you don't need any audio source on that and sometimes you don't even need the screen oftentimes we think of photos that the application is is still it's a digital application because we're taking our photos from a digital source but a lot of photos still in this day and age have a physical application you're a church and you're printing off a lawn banner or you're you're hanging artwork in your lobby there's still a lot of physical applications so the application method is much higher because they can go around different places and then also higher is the consumption rate uh i don't know about you but uh if you know most of us at this time even though we might not like to admit it we'll take our phones with us when we go to the bathroom and uh and sometimes we will scroll on our phones when we're doing that we will probably look at things but we probably won't listen to things maybe you know you've probably been in the bathroom at times and you hear somebody on the stall beside you watching a video that's weird and i just might you know i'm gonna step in my soapbox and say we all need to stop doing that at some point but a lot of us are still scrolling on our phones and looking at photos right or maybe we're in a meeting and the the boss is talking and like we're a little distracted we got the phone underneath the desk and we're we're kind of doing that scroll thing and nobody sees it because we're muted we can again do that with photos videos doesn't give us a chance unless it's subtitles doesn't give us a chance to do that so it's got a higher application method and then it's got a higher consumption rate photos over videos for the average audience And then the last reason that I would say photo is unique to video and at times better than videos is because it freezes you in a moment. We're having a conversation right now. It's going to start a middle and an end when you watch a video. It's got a start, a middle, and an end. It's got a narrative arc towards it, which is great. It takes you on a journey. It takes you from point A to point B. Photos arrest you in a moment. They freeze you there. I kind of use the analogy of the frozen bug in the amber from Jurassic Park, right? That's what photo does. It freezes it for... days, years, decades, it freezes that moment in time. And the reason that's important for us and our busy go, go, go culture is it gives us the needed time to pause and look at something and reflect on it. And even in this conversation where I'm speaking a mile a minute, it's hard for me to do that. Photos force us as a culture to stop, look at something and reckon with it before moving on. So those are the unique advantages of photo over video. [Tom Palin] you know it's kind of interesting a few things i want to hit on is one is what you just said too is like you know sometimes i go on walks or i'll go on a run and i'll see the sun in a certain way or see the clouds and i don't the one thing i don't think about doing is taking a video of it i actually think about taking a picture of it because it is it's beautiful i want people to see the beauty of what i'm doing or what i'm experiencing and share that so i i like what you said about that um about that experience but then also back to one of your first points is that you said that um there is it's a lower effort to do photos rather than um the video and what i hear people saying especially in the church world is i'm not gifted in taking photos i can't do that how would you counter that if someone says to you hey listen i'm thanks i appreciate you wanting me to be on the photography team but i'm not a photographer i can't do that well i would say if you can't do that you're definitely not going to join our video team [Ben Stapley] um but you know and it's interesting you're bringing that up man i don't want to go too much on a side tangent here but i the tension i find with most people is not telling them you you can do this you're going to be good enough we're going to provide the training um i i find most churches can do that the struggle i find with a lot of people is hey i i got an iphone and i i do this all day long um and uh so i'm on your photo team right And so I found most people that their estimation of their skill set is actually higher than what it is and what is needed for the team. And that they're surprised that the needed coaching and training will provide to try to get them up to speed. And then when we do, we show them, hey, this is your portfolio before and look at it now. They're like, oh my goodness, I had no idea there's something called rule thirds or leading lines or what are framing devices. And then they get excited about it. But I found the opposite tension of what you're talking about is I think most younger people joining teams have a higher estimation of their skill set, which is good. They think they're going to be able to crush it. That's fine. You just need to provide the coaching as you go. [Tom Palin] Well, that's awesome. I'm glad you gave that pushback on the other side of that because I haven't experienced that. I'm like begging people. Come on, dude. I've seen your social media. You're good. But I like the important thing that you said is the coaching that you're going to provide. They're going to be a part of this team. And then you provide them the coaching and the equipping to how to make their photos even better than what they actually think they are. So I think that's really important. [Ben Stapley] um but just since we're parked here for the churches who are like yourself saying i struggle getting people on board and serving on my team there's some like really low hanging fruit that i do with all my for for production teams first of all t-shirts that they wear you know when they're serving on the team and you know it says you know media team on the back i always get on the print on the back um if you want to join you know email photo at x y and z church and it just it's first of all it's free advertisement um and then the other thing too is i've seen a lot of churches do this where they'll get people to to take photos and they'll dump them and they'll archive them and they never see the light of day so if you're able to to show to your photographers what you took showed up in here here and here we saw it on social it landed on our website and then it was shown in our services on our led wall or projection screens oh good my artwork found the light of day and because if you don't then it's like why why am i taking i i took a thousand photos and they went nowhere and that's really frustrating to artists and if they see where their art lands they're going to be much more inspired to keep participating [Tom Palin] Yeah, that's actually a really good point. You really highlight to them, hey, this is how we thanks for taking these photos. Here's how we use it. So I think that's really cool. OK, so you just talked about the power of photos and the reach that it has and whatnot. Well, let's talk about the importance of it. You know, why is it still important? I mean, because, again, if video is so important and gets better reach, supposedly, why is it so important for us to still continue to do photography? [Ben Stapley] Great question. The first one I would say it's a lot more memorable photos are than video because again, it freezes you in a moment and it arrests you in the time and you're with video. Oh gosh, if you're shooting at 24 frames a second. And it's a 60-second video. I can't do math really quick. That's a lot of frames. That's a lot of images that you've shown to people and they're not going to remember them all. You showed them one and it's going to be a lot more memorable. I always ask people who've checked out our website, hey, what do you remember what was written on there? And they might be able to pull out your vision statement or your service times. They're not going to remember any of what you've written in terms of your theological statements. But they will say, hey, I did see that photo on the front of the kid having a good time in the children's ministry space. And I think I'm going to bring my kids there. It seems like it's a safe place that they're going to enjoy. they're going to remember the visuals they're going to remember the photos so that's the first thing i'd say in terms of why churches need to keep on pushing into photography they're a lot more memorable a lot more memorable than videos and a lot more a lot more memorable than the words that you say or the words that you write uh i always say you know Whenever I ask people, hey, you know, I got a chance to preach once in a while. And I always say, hey, what did you remember or what impacted you? And they do not remember my fun alliteration or my six-point outline. They never remember that stuff. They always remember the visual support that I give with it. And then that unlocks the story or the scripture. So it's highly memorable. That's one of the reasons I push for it. The other one is it shows what is unseen. So what I mean by that is photos have a unique way because the way we're able to manipulate them to show people what is unseen. So as an example towards that, when you have a fast shutter speed, you're able to capture a hummingbird in flight. And so normally we just see a blur of activity, but oh my goodness, it actually has wings. And those wings are keeping it aloft and in a flight. Our eyes can't perceive that. Cameras can, and photos can show us things that we can't see. When you take a long time lapse of a car driving at night, then you see the blur of the headlines behind it. Photos show us things that are unseen, that our eyes wouldn't normally seen. And so that's a unique advantage towards it as well. And then two other ones aligned with, is it helps bring things into focus and we talked a little bit about this how first of all they pause time so they allow us to be contemplative which is great as a culture and they also allow us to focus on something generally speaking the human eye can see from kind of three or four feet beyond itself in terms of focus and then in infinity so generally speaking when we see things when we look around the world everything is in focus it's all in focus in terms of us when it comes to photography Because we're able to control that depth of field, the amount of things that are in focus, it allows us to focus in on the topic. Even with my camera right here, you've probably noticed that there's a shallow depth of focus that I'm in focus. My background is it because I want the people watching this video to pay attention to looking at me instead of the silly background behind me. [Tom Palin] Yeah. [Ben Stapley] Photos allow you to do that. Again, in a super busy world where people are cluttered and unfocused, photography allows you to say, look at this, pay attention to this one thing right now. And then the last reason why they're super important is they allow us to keep memories alive. So why do couples print off and purchase photo albums of their kids? Why do individuals print, frame, and hang photos of loved ones around their house? Because they want to keep those memories alive. What does social media throw you yearly reminders? This is what you posted last year. This is what you posted five years ago. Because they know there's a huge power in that. You want to see that content. You want to be reminded because you forgot. of what you posted and what more importantly what happened a year ago what happened five years ago and if they show that to you it's going to unlock that memory and it's going to have a meaningful emotional impact to you that's why they keep feeding you that content because they know that's the way we're wired we forget things but we want to remember things photos allow us to tap into that desire to remember what's been forgotten [Tom Palin] Yeah, I'm telling you, I agree completely, especially with that last thing is like, I'm so grateful that my mom took all the photos that she did. Of course, when I was younger, we didn't want to be photographed. Mom, no, no, no. And Ben, I see the photos of you and your family that you take. I mean, I just I'm so grateful that my mom took those photos so that I can remember because we spent time overseas in Germany back in the early 80s and. i don't remember everything you know i'm 47 now i don't remember everything but because my mom took those photos and then put them in a photo album i was able to remember that moment and it recurred now listen if she took video and now video wasn't really big back then but like if she took a video i don't think i would watch sit and watch the two-hour video of that experience but me standing next to the shepherd the german shepherd while he was doing his work was like i'm like i remember that i mean and so it's just you're so right though it's so important to create those memories and then to share them on whatever platform you have [Ben Stapley] Yeah. And when you see that one photo of the German shepherd, you then remember that whole two-hour experience. So you don't have to watch that two-hour video to have that memory unlocked. You just have to have that one photo and it brings you back to the whole experience. [Tom Palin] So true. All right. So let's get into the practical stuff here. This is so important about the power and the importance of photography, but how can churches utilize photography still today? [Ben Stapley] Yeah, you say still today. It is not a dying art form. How do churches utilize calligraphy, even in this modern age? My mother-in-law is a calligrapher, so I say that very tongue-in-cheek. So yes, we can still use photography today, even though video is on the rise. So there's the typical formats that a lot of people are thinking of and already applying, which is great. Your website, your social media platforms are probably the two biggest typical ways and churches utilize that. If you're not, make sure to do that. If I go to your website and the majority of your contents are words and not images, you've missed the boat. a majority of the vast majority i usually hear about 85 of us are visual learners so meet people where they're at uh not with graphics um and not with text but with images on your social on your website yeah can i stop you there real quick because i think that's really important because i look at my website our website at our church there's a lot of graphics not a lot of photos [Tom Palin] and i always like to say real people like to see real people doing real things and so you can have a great graphic but if they're not they want to people want to see people actually doing what you're talking about [Ben Stapley] yes now well let's call it out there's a there's an inherent tension with that because graphics are evergreen the graphic is not going to age in gray hair and then look odd because it was taken 20 years ago i guess they say evergreen stylistically it will go out of date at some point but the graphic's never going to go to another church down the road and say bad things about your church the graphic's not going to do that some people in your churches may do that and not may will. That's just the nature. People are on a spiritual journey. Sometimes it's up, sometimes it's down. And so with the photos, there's a tension of that, that is this person going to be around here five years later? No, you know, no. Are we going to need to update it? Yes. Should we still push into it? Yes, because we probably shouldn't have a photo on our website longer than five years. So So there's a tension with some of that. So we talked about some of the typical applications. Let me jump into the atypical in terms of, hey, I never thought about that. There's probably four that come to the top of my mind, the first one being campus artwork. one of my pet peeves in churches is what i call the the holiday in artwork so when you go into a lobby space and you have like these generic pastoral photos of it's a landscape and there's a there's a brook and there's a hill in the background and it's it says nothing and it offends nobody and so we're going to play it safe we're going to put that up there um you're you're not utilizing your campus wall space to a dynamic and engaging way and there's a lot of ways in which you can do it you could hire local artists to create original content for the a lot of different ways one of those ways is photography So like, why don't you take the photos of what's happening at your church and to put it on your walls? Again, it's going to have a shelf life on it. You're not going to want those photos up there, especially if they're kids. You see this, you know, most kids, you take a photo of a kid at eight year olds and then four years later, they're 12. And it's like, oh my goodness, you're a completely different human. And that photo of you in the wall, we got to take down because it looks completely different. Yes. there is a price of admission to doing that and you're going to need to cycle through those photos that are on your walls probably about every three to five years but it's a lot more engaging than seeing vanilla artwork on the wall that nobody pays attention to so on your campuses utilize it as much as you can um the next thing i would say is uh this is maybe a little outside of the control of people who are listening unless they're the teaching pastors the lead pastors but message support so when i say that a lot of a lot of people preparing their messages think through, they think through bullet points, right? Here's my bullet points, my message. They don't think visually what's the support I need. Whenever someone says something that has a visual element to it, as an audience member, I wanna see that. So if you're talking about your father and what a mentor they've been to you your whole life on a Father's Day message, I better see a photo of you and him hugging or arm in arm. um are you on his lap when you were a kid behind you because you're talking about it we all want to see it when you're you know you're talking about the fishing trip you went on and the big fish don't just say it show it so message support would be the second thing and again that's a little tricky because a lot of teaching pastors were taught how to construct messages with text and not with images but there's a chance for you to coach them there And then the other way in relationship to that as well in terms of the service experience is with your generosity moment, your offering time when you call the congregation towards exercising financial stewardship and financial generosity. When you talk about it, don't just say it, show it as well. So when you say, hey, thank you for your generosity, it goes towards us creating a great kids experience. By the way, we had 200 kids at our VPS last week. It was phenomenal. There better be a slideshow that's going on behind you showing it and not just saying it. then the last application as well which is a little unique because i think i think we forget about it especially if we grew up in a digital age but photos can be printed and they can be sent to people believe it or not tom i might be blowing your mind right now i know that but stay with me here for a moment you can print off photos the reason i say that is child two key moments two key moments low low hanging fruit for churches here is your child dedications and your baptisms kind of milestone moments for people in their faith journey for their children or for themselves get a photographer to take that print that put it in the mail they will frame that and they will be thankful and for a couple reasons first of all if you get a professional doing it it's better than grandma on the back row taking it with her flip phone right it's going to be a higher quality and the second thing is they usually don't think about it themselves they're kind of so caught up in the moment they're not they're just experiencing it they're not capturing it You can capture it for them in a high quality, send it to them as a gift later on that week. And oh my goodness, that small step right there will probably be the most meaningful thing you do for them as a church that year. Print it, send those key moments to people when possible. [Tom Palin] That is awesome. Actually, I am so encouraged by that. Every time I talk to you, I always get some nugget or nuggets that really encourage me. And that is the thing I'm going to take away from this the most is take those pictures because we do baptisms all the time. We do child dedications a few times a year. take those pictures send it to the families oh my gosh that that's such a great thing that someone can do and you're right they're going to take that picture they're going to post it up there on their uh they're going to frame it they're going to even put it up on their um refrigerator they're going to remember that moment and even if you said think about it like keep track of it and say a year from now Send them that same picture and say, hey, happy one year anniversary to your baptism or your child dedication. You're highlighting these key moments and you're helping people reflect and remember Christ in their lives. So I think that's awesome. That's such a great practical step they can do. [Ben Stapley] Yeah. And anything, you know, I like these conversations because I share with you and you also share with me. So if there's anything I missed, you tell me because I want to learn from this conversation as well, Tom. [Tom Palin] No, see, you can't flip this on me. The reason why I have you on here is because you're the expert here and I want to get the knowledge here. i i seriously i learned a lot uh from you and it's just having great conversations uh with you uh this has been fantastic ben i i so appreciate this where where can people connect with you um again give your website give your social platform so that they can ask you questions if they have follow-up [Ben Stapley] Yeah, if you want, jump on benstapley.com slash photo would probably be the best place for people to go in terms of continuing learning on this topic. And then if you want to creep on me in terms of social media and see how I do photography, just Ben Stapley. I think I'm on all the platforms with that handle. [Tom Palin] Nice. And again, just to go very bare bones basic, you don't have to have a specific phone, right? You just need to have a phone and they can be a participant and help, right? [Ben Stapley] yeah yes so the bar of entry is really low that being said i would encourage churches to buy a low-end mirrorless camera so that they can let people grow and develop on that so they don't need to bring one to the table but if the church has one that they could lend them then the quality is going to be much higher um so i would i would make that rudimentary per purchase with a with a couple prime lenses you're maybe looking at a thousand dollars and the you're going to see your photo quality jump dramatically with that type of investment as a church. [Tom Palin] Yeah, I agree. Again, we encourage people to use their phones, but we also have a handful, a handful, we have like two other actual cameras with real lenses that really help us on that too. So, well, Ben, as always, it's great. I appreciate you taking time to talk to me today. [Ben Stapley] Excellent. Thank you so much, Tom, for having me again. [Tom Palin] All right, so what did you think? What stood out to you about that? How were you encouraged? How were you challenged? Again, I always say this with some people, especially with Ben. Every time he's on, I learn something new and I'm challenged in a different way. And I was challenged today as well. So I hope you were. I would love to hear where you were challenged, where you were encouraged, maybe what other questions you have. So definitely put it in the comment section below, or you can hit me up on Twitter at T.A. Pounder. You can also hit up Ben. I've got all his information in the show notes. Hit us both up on Twitter. He's active on it. We would both love to continue this conversation and talk more about photography and how you can utilize it for your church or your ministry. All right, heroes. Well, thanks so much for being with me today. As always, if you enjoyed the podcast, go and subscribe to it. It's on Apple Podcasts. It's on Spotify. We would love for you to subscribe to it there. You can also find it at thechurch.digital. There I've got a lot of other content as well and other content from other writers and podcasters. Jeffrey runs the site. It's a great site for you to check out, again, for your online ministry needs. All right, heroes. Well, I hope you have a great rest of your day. Until next time, have a great one.