Jenan Taylor
20 June 2024
A Port Melbourne minister hopes to encourage his parishioners to better recognise themselves as people of faith through a photographic project.
Holy Trinity Port Melbourne assistant priest the Reverend Joseph Emmanuel has taken portrait photographs of parishioners capturing the spirituality in their faces at church.
Mr Emmanuel hoped the photographs revealed to each person something new about themselves and each other, and sparked reflections and conversations between them about their faith.
He said some members often felt negative about themselves, but the portraits managed to illuminate the better parts of who they were.
“It was a new journey for them when they engaged internally with those pictures. The photos brought up all kinds of emotions, memories and even healing in some cases,” Mr Emmanuel said.
“I started to feel as if God wanted me to do more portraits to show them their better side.”
He said he was a fine art photographer in his spare time, and often observed how the natural light in churches sat on the faces of the faithful.
He said this drove him to want to photograph the parishioners, along with being inspired by a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem about Jesus in ten thousand places, and faces.
Read more: ‘Meet Jesus’ project to help church members share faith
Holy Trinity member and project participant Helen Barry said having the photos exhibited at the church had prompted many discussions among parishioners about them.
Ms Barry said she was captivated more by the expressions on her fellow congregants faces in their portraits.
She said the photographs revealed something of their inner life, and of their vulnerability.
Ms Barry said knowing more about each person and their journey would help parishioners feel closer to each other.
She said the project encouraged her to reflect more deeply on her own journey.
“It’s made me think about my history in the church and why I am an Anglican. Before this, it didn’t occur to me,” Ms Barry said.
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