Church Directories
In my career with Lamb’s Photography, I have photographed a number of church directories. Over the years, we have tried several different business models to sell portraits, from paper proofs to online proofs to onsite orders. In addition to participating in the church directory, some families will want to purchase photos. They can have access to their files for printing portraits for themselves, or they can order portraits from one of the many online services.
We offer a different way of doing church directory photography. Unlike the large national photography companies, we focus on taking great family portraits without high-pressure sales.
High-pressure selling is something we don’t do.
We want to take our emphasis off of selling photographs and put our emphasis on taking great portraits. Families can relax knowing they won’t be pressured to purchase portraits. In order to do that, we are hired as photographers only and the church pays us an hourly fee for that service.
We deliver the images to your church for creating the directory. Images can be shared with families for printing portraits or for use on social media.
If the church has an office person or a church member who is familiar with computer layouts, they can be enlisted to create the book to be printed by a local printer or we can put you in touch with a company that helps you create your church directory and has all of the templates needed to make your job easy.
Church Responsibilities
Getting families signed up seems easy, but it takes effort from the church. Sign up sheets are convenient and can be used at the beginning of the project, but a phone committee works best. Families can be called and a time scheduled on the phone. We are willing to come to your church on Sundays and photograph before and after church. Another possibility are week nights, maybe starting after school around 4:00 and working into the evening. Working around high school and college sports is always a challenge here in the south. You may decide not to schedule, but to simply let your families know the times we are available. The risk, of course is that a number of families come at the same time an may have to wait. The good thing about this is that they could get to know each other as they are waiting for their time.
This is a committee of people willing to share the responsibility of helping families get signed in and filling out their contact information. This doesn’t need to fall on the shoulders of one person. Current family information can be printed out on labels prior to photography days and each family can simply check the information and update as needed, or they can fill out a form prior to having their portraits taken.
Ideally, each person or family would pick out their own photo for the directory. In reality, this delays the completion of the project while you wait on the procrastinators, and every church has their share of procrastinators. For that reason, I recommend that a couple of people from the church go thru the images and select the best pose of each family. Since the church has access to all of the images, if someone asks if they can choose another pose, that is easily done. Another option is that the church could hire me to do this. I have had years of experience editing and selecting images. A few families might not agree with my choice either, but the whole idea is to get the project moving along. A hybrid system might be best, where families are given a deadline for selecting and, after that date, a group of people, or I would go through each family’s folder of pictures and pick one for the directory. The favorite photo could be renamed with family’s last name then first so that they will appear alphabetically and easily placed into the page layout.
Most every church has someone familiar with computers who can easily lay out the images and the family information. The church would need to decide on a page layout.
Some church management software actually have a way to create a pictorial directory built into their software. Be sure to check yours to see if this is a possibility. If you are wanting a printable copy, be sure that the software will allow you to export the pages so that you or your local printer can print the directory for you.
There are a few companies online that are designed to help with the layout and creation of church directories. Please go online and check out these websites. Here are two online companies for you to check out. Most that I found are included with church management software, so be sure to see what your church already has.
Once a layout is decided upon, a page template can be created so that each page is the same.
Usually, after the photo pages, a complete roster of church members would be included.
* Optional – A photo for the front cover can be submitted by anyone, or we will be happy to take when we are there. Activity pages can be a part of your directory or not. These photos of different ministries, youth, Sunday school, staff etc. are optional, but will add to your printing costs.
You may have a local printer you want to have print your book or, if you have a quality printer and a committee to help put the books together, you may want to print the directory yourself. If doing this, you might want to consider having a printer print the front and back cover on a higher quality glossy paper. Your ability to bind the books is a consideration.
