The Commission: photojournalism interprets spiritual subject matter. (Photo Critique).

One of the few organizational publications able to consistently make use of photojournalism on a regular basis is The Commission, the magazine of the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board (Richmond, Va.). I saluted this magazine's visual accomplishments in a CW column back in 1985, and 17 years later The Commission's efforts are just as effective.

What makes The Commission even more noteworthy is its demanding subject matter. It's published for missionaries around the world. Its content is all about missionary work. In every issue, its imagery must somehow capture the essence of a task that deals with spiritual, rather than material, topics. A daunting goal, yet one that is often achieved.

The Commission's photographs work best when displayed as cumulative, rather than individual, images. Picture editing and layout are critical to meaning.

As far as I can tell, this publication does not setup any of its pictures. The talented photojournalists who interpret the work of thousands of missionaries working in hundreds of countries on the pages of The Commission are observers, not intruders. They work as reporters with cameras, interpreting basic human values on film in often abstract and incongruent ways.

Those who manage this publication obviously have made a serious commitment to photojournalism--a feat most organizational publications, even those published by corporations generating billions of dollars of sales and profits, can't come close to matching. The Commission's editors and writers, and most critically Dan Beatty, its art director, are visually literate--skilled at using photographs as a language, as opposed to treating them as subordinate illustrations. The magazine itself is obviously planned around its picture usage--each story is designed so that it has an ample number of spreads at its command, making it possible for the pictures to be seen easily, and allowing photos to be thoughtfully related and sequenced to convey a substantive message.

This quartet of pictures from a story on missionary work in India offers a good example of The Commission's visual literacy in action. These photos make their point through thematic interpretation, rather than literal description. All deal with the same subject--human hands--yet each says something different to the viewer. The man at lower left appears thoughtful, perhaps even doubtful. The abstracted hands of the person holding the Bible seem confident and expressive. The shots below convey an emotional range--more abstracted hands, this time those of a woman, are backed by a colorful sari and graced by beautiful jewelry. They are clutched in repose, while the radiant man to her right appears to be at prayer--or is he simply saying thank you for the spiritual insights he has received?

Such pictures as these are typical of The Commission's imagery. In my view, this magazine consistently works at a more thought-provoking visual level than any other organizational publication I see.

Philip N, Douglis, ABC, is director of The Douglis Visual Workshops, now in its 31st year of training communicators in visual literacy, Douglis, an IABC Fellow, is the most widely known consultant on editorial photography for organizations. He offers a comprehensive six-person Communicating with Pictures workshop every May and October in Oak Creek Canyon, near Sedona, Ariz. For current openings and registration information, call Douglis at 602-493-6709, or e-mail [e-mail]. He also welcomes tearsheets for possible use in this column. Send to The Douglis Visual Workshops, 2505 E. Carol Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85028.