Request for technical advice / brainstorming re temple photo app

[joevans3]

My mom is serving a mission and spending a lot of time encouraging people to go to the temple. She is in an impoverished, remote area where the travel involved is still a sacrifice. They give members the official LDS posters of their local temple to help encourage them. Even the simple posters are kind of a "luxury" item. I also get the sense that the temple seems fantastical and far away to the members.

Inspired a bit by Elder Cooks' "Picture Yourself In the Temple" talk, I thought it would be cool and relatively easy to use mobile phone cameras and superimpose photos of members in front of the temple. Then print them in color, poster-size, and send them out to my mom to give out.

The goal would be to make the temple seem closer and more attainable.

This seems so similar to a bunch of mobile apps and other tech already available that I wonder if this couldn't be done with existing off-the shelf apps. Any suggestions out there?

It's been a while since I've participated in this forum. This is probably way too simple a question for this crowd, but I'd appreciate any direction you could provide. I'm not a Photoshop guru, although a painstaking, handcrafted approach would obviously work. Of course, one could always literally cut and paste family photos on top of temple posters... but, c'mon, it's 2016.

-J

[sbradshaw]

I really like this idea. You would need to start with a photo of the temple that has a lot of sidewalk/landscaping in the bottom half, to make it look more realistic with the family in front.

At temple open houses sometimes they have a big backdrop picture of the temple you can stand in front of to get your picture taken (this ensures a good photo of your family at the temple without too many people wandering behind you or unexpected weather during the open house). It includes a border around it to make it clear it's an event photo, not a photo that's 100% real.

[joevans3]

That's an interesting thought. I wonder if those open house photo backdrops ever 'go on tour'. Maybe a stake/district temple-themed event...

[BBailey711]

I personally like your approach as a Photographer. But did you consider your costs? The thicker "Poster" paper and the Ink? My printer will do 8.5 x 11, 11 x 17, and A-3. The Ink costs around $60.00 and I can burn that up in a week if I used it like I want to.

The LDS Church is in 150 countries. Just take Brazil for one. It is almost the size of Texas and only has 1 Temple. But a lot of Missionaries go there. The people mostly live by the Atlantic Coastal Cities. The North Western part of Brazil is Amazon River, Deltas and Heavy Forest.

My thoughts would be to contact one of the websites that are currently in place to print your photos for you. Send them both a picture of a Temple and the person to be injected, and they would do that more cost effective then you and in seconds literally. Then for a small fee the photo could be emailed anywhere. Probably less than your ink would cost. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea. I just know as a Photographer the printing kills me, and these websites are cheaper.

[sbradshaw]

I personally like your approach as a Photographer. But did you consider your costs? The thicker "Poster" paper and the Ink? My printer will do 8.5 x 11, 11 x 17, and A-3. The Ink costs around $60.00 and I can burn that up in a week if I used it like I want to.

My thoughts would be to contact one of the websites that are currently in place to print your photos for you. Send them both a picture of a Temple and the person to be injected, and they would do that more cost effective then you and in seconds literally. Then for a small fee the photo could be emailed anywhere. Probably less than your ink would cost. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea. I just know as a Photographer the printing kills me, and these websites are cheaper.

This is a good point – besides printing, shipping the full-size printed photos would also cost a lot of money, so it'd be good to see if a company could deliver directly there.

The LDS Church is in 150 countries. Just take Brazil for one. It is almost the size of Texas and only has 1 Temple. But a lot of Missionaries go there.

Brazil and the United States are actually about the same size geographically, and Brazil is 2/3 the size in terms of population – much bigger than Texas! http://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/US/BR
There are currently 9 temples operating, under construction, or announced for Brazil, which is pretty cool!