In politics they have a concept called optics, it means that it is not only the message or project that has to be right, it has to look right as well.
Look at this image, of my former Church celebrating Palm Sunday this morning.
The worshippers are all facing the speaker and their backs are faced away from the road, away from the general public.
What does this say to the outside world? What do the optics say?
If I was copywriter looking for a headline I might caption the picture:
Church turns its back on the world
or perhaps
Wycliffe Rejects Reading
I know that many of the people in this photo, who’s faces you can’t see because they are turned away from the road are some of the most outgoing and fab people I know. But, this is the power of photography, sometimes it can tell us something else about what is going on.
Sometimes it can show us a connection that the subject or even the photographer could not have told on his or her own.
Sometimes photos do lie, but sometimes they tell us an uncomfortable truth that we cannot see without the mirror of a photograph.
How would you caption this pic? What has it said to you about Wycliffe and its message, proclaimed on the banner….