Say ‘cheese’

I’ve attended several corps that produce an annual ‘corps directory’, a listing of people who are regular members of the corps and their contact details. Some directories also include a photo of the person listed.

While adding the photo necessitates an extra step for admin purposes (i.e. seeking the person’s permission to include their photo), it can be a very helpful addition, especially for new people joining the corps who may be struggling to put a face to a name. It also comes in handy – and I speak from experience – for new corps officers as they try to sort out who’s who in the zoo.

Just like a terrible photo on a driver’s licence or in a passport, some corps directory photos are quite amusing.

Here’s Mr C. looking like he’s just about to sneeze. Mrs H. seems to have just sucked on a lemon or tasted something sour. Mrs T. appears to have closed her eyes or blinked just as the photo was taken. Mrs H. seems to have neither brushed her hair nor looked in a mirror because she appears to have just emerged from some sort of hostage situation.

And what is the story with the Petersons? Are those weird smiles because they’re newly married, or has someone spiked their breakfast juice? They look positively delirious. Maybe it’s just the glow of young love.

Mr. B.’s photo seems to confirm he’s on the run from either an ex or the police. Who takes a photo by giving a sideways glance at the camera and looking scared? What’s so hard about a good old front-on smiling face? It looks like a mug shot from a wanted poster.

Mr and Mrs Jones clearly came to the photo shoot with different ideas of what they were doing. He’s in a Coke t-shirt and hasn’t shaved for a few days; she’s in full make-up and a pearl necklace and a dress with a neckline that plunges slightly too low for a church directory photo.

Young Matt Michaelson looks thrilled. At 13, he’s finally old enough to request his own entry and photo in the corps directory, so he’s got a huge grin on his face. Meanwhile, in the entry above, Mr and Mrs Michaelson look slightly sad and lost. Mind you, that’s how they normally look, so we can understand why Matt is happy to finally do his own thing.

There are a lot of photos where the photographer has clearly said, ‘Say cheese’, and then he’s taken the photos not on the ‘eese’ expression but on the ‘ch’ face.

Sadly, there are also a lot of people not really showing the joy of being saved and redeemed by Christ. They look, rather, like they’ve just stubbed a toe.

Imagine if someone based their decision on whether they attended your corps or not by looking at the faces in your corps directory. Would they choose to join, or would they later endure a sleepless night haunted by the images?

I hope you have a nice photo in your corps directory – smiling just enough to look happy but not so much as to suggest you need a stronger form of medication.

–      Major Mal Davies is Assistant Divisional Commander for the Victoria Division.