I think they are a family.  I think they are barbequing or roasting hot dogs (hence the skewer).   I think she is thinking "nice job, honey."

Looks to me like a couple enjoying family time with their kids. He's cooking and maybe showing one of the kids what he's doing. Woman is smiling the kind of smile that suggests she's just enjoying whatever is going on.

 

I mean, you can read anything into a picture like that so I suspect this ends up being a bit of an inkblot test (what you read into it says more about you than it). Maybe she's actually his sister-in-law and the kids are cousins rather than siblings. She has the hots for her sister's hubby and wants to get in his pants and that's what is behind the smile. I just don't get anything like that on first viewing though. Had to actually think a bit to come up with it.

 

Mendalla

 

They are all models told to pose as if on a family outing.  The man was told to pretend to cook on the barbeque, and the woman was told to smile at the man like she loved him.  They are all just looking forward to the shoot to end

I always just assumed that they were a couple enjoying a BBQ with their two kids.

 

Perhaps the story is different. Maybe she has recently divorced her abusive husband  and has invited her good-looking, single neighbour around for a celebratory roast.

I've probably seen this photo (along with the others) several thousand times over the course of my WonderCafe experience. And I've just begun to wonder why it is there.  I suspect it has something to do with "relationship." Would it matter if it were gone, or different?

 

 

 

 

Yes it would matter if it is gone.  She is beautiful.  I like the picture. It reminds me that beauty is present in the "everyday" and that life is filled with everyday beauty ... every day.  

I think the picture has to be considered as part of a package since it is one of many pictures that come up regularly.  I think the overall image being projected is of happy, loving families.  It might be interesting, though, to go through all of the pictures to see who is included and who isn't and then ask why. 

I think they're at a single parent's picnic. I think she's thinking, "I wonder if he's an ESFP."

Wow...I just went through and grabbed as many of the images as I could.  This is really interesting.  To answer my questions from before...

 

Who is included?  Almost completely young people.  Almost completely white people.  There is one photo of a group of kids who are very diverse racially, but most of the pictures show white families.  Two pictures are actually saved as "black girl" and "Young black girl" and one is saved as "Asians".  There is one photo of two young men called "guys on a bed" that seems to imply a gay couple.

 

Who is not included?  Middle aged and elderly people.  People in mixed race relationships.  Single parent families aren't depicted obviously, although the man with the girl fishing could be a single parent family. 

 

Why?  What image does the UCC want to project to encourage people to come to church?  It seems clear that they want young families to join and also young adults.  They want to be seen as diverse and inclusive, but they are still (imo) tossing in token black and Asian photos instead of truly being representative of a diverse population.  The people in the photos are "clean cut"...the "edgiest" person is the bald man in the "guys on a bed" photo. 

 

Each picture is warm and fuzzy, but taken as a group it seems to represent the stereotypical white, middle class, 2 parent-2 kid family with a little bit of "diversity" thrown in.  Honestly, it feels like the "black girl" and "Asian" and "guys on a bed" pictures are thrown in not to attract a diverse group of people so much as to make all the white liberals feel good about belonging to a racially diverse church. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They all have  amazingly good teeth.............

 

They're all look like Canadians to me.

 

Luckily, I've found one I can identify with......

The little girl riding her scooter reminds me of me - more years ago than I care to remember.

 

When I tried really, really hard to do something - and I thought folks were watching - I would stick out my tongue in intense concentration, too!

 

 

And... this surprises you?

Pilgrim says that 'they all look like Canadians to me'.   I agree.   I thought it a nice mix. 

White (but not all the whites are Anglo-Saxon) dominates. 

One coloured family

One oriental family

Two mixed groups (one children, the other teens)

Actually I would say that is pretty representative in the East.

 

Marital status - hard to tell. 

First couple - that looks like an engagement picture to me; but they appear again and with two children who do not look at all alike.  Second marriage / blended family?

Second picture - married, partners, or buddies?  (I don't see the bed.  I thought they were sitting together on a couch)

Fourth picture -  until the question came up, I presumed they were a family.  Now I'm thinking single-mom who has just met a nice guy.

Father and daughter (with at least one other person at the table) - no hint of marital status.  Could be married, widower, or single father having his kids for the weekend.

Children - n/a

Father (or grandfather) and child - no marital status indicated

Mother and children - no martial status, although the person in the background could be the husband, or the grandfather or a passer-by on the sidewalk who turned to watch.

Oriental 3-generations - no males present; marital status of the two adult women undetermined

Teenage girls - n/a

 

Ages - true there is only one older person.  The others all look under 50 - most in their 30-40s (or children or teens).   But we knew these ads were aimed at young people so I don't feel left out.

 

There are no visible handicaps - no wheelchairs, walkers, not even anyone wearing glasses.  They all are good-looking (good teeth), and probably middle-class. 

 

I don't think I could have done a better job of portraying Canadians.  Do you?

 

 

It seems to me that there are very few white folk portrayed. If it is canada , are there more immigrants and other nationalities than white ?Makes no difference to me but I am wondering.

The kids look nothing like this woman. I'd say that he's divorced (having been caught fooling around with that slutty secretary at work for 3 years) and is now getting his kids once ever other weekend and that this is his new girlfriend, who feels obligate to like his kids, hence the smile. She would secretly like to move in with this guy soon 'cause her ex boy friend has been stalking her for months now and she's been out of work for over a year now. It's all pretty obvious to me.

 

yes.

 

 

 

 

You win, Neo.

 

 

 

I count 32 people in the pictures.  Who would you include?  Who would you leave out? 

 

Is there an abbreviation for "This is so funny, I can't stop laughing!!"  ?

 

 

They're certainly the kind of Canadians that the media like to show off...

 

 

 

She is very natural, like this is still really play for her, not yet an acting job.  But for me this heightens the seductiveness of it, the subliminal message that "You too could be this natural",,,

 

 

Here are some images I grabbed in just a few minutes on google.  What if images like these replaced the stock photos?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ha, ha, ha, ... your typical WCafer's!

Interesting pictures, Rishi.  I found four that I could identify with as typical of someone I know.  

The first one could be my granddaughter or one of her friends, spending time with a kid - maybe he's a step brother, or a kid she's babysitting.

The pleasant looking, optomistic young woman with glasses could have been me fifty years ago, or I could have been one of those women on "girls night out" twenty years ago.

The over-weight labourer reminds me of many of the men I've known - railway workers in my youth, truckers, deliverymen. 

The others look like real people but I don't identify with them. 

 

Edited to add that the 'girls night out' photo would most likely be my daughter and her friends.  I was much too shy, and being invited to join the girls after work or get together on a Friday evening was a rare thing for me.  Perhaps more something I would like to identify with than the reality. 

 

 

If I were designing the site, I would include an image that looked something like this:

 

Interesting new line-up, Rishi......... (mug shots for Wondercafe, lol).

 

We could have a competition - which Wondercafinators do you see in this picture?

 

IMO, the image most applicable is the one that says "image not available". It would cut out a lot of the crap if folks had to use their own photo -and not an anonymous avatar........

 

Good photo Somegal.  That one does speak to me about the UCC.

 

I like the WC photos, which I think should be considered as a group.

I see ethnic diversity in them.

A lot of you have commented on this thread about how they are all younger adults. Remember that the Emerging Spirit campaign launched with the Wondercafe, and the target audiences were 30-45 years of age. So I'm not surprised that the adults all look 30-45 years old, and this is the age group most likely to have younger children, as seen in the phoos.

That's not to say that the WC is not meant for other ages. The Wondercafe and Emerging Spirit are for people of all ages. But the UCCan recognized that the age group 30-45 is the one most not engaged in church. So from a marketing point of view, I would guess that the WC photos that we're discussing here are designed to resonate most with 30-45 year-olds.

somegalfromcan,

 

For clarity-

 

That is an MCC photo and not a UCC photo. It shows Brent Hawkes MCC clergy (best known for Layton's funeral service) along with Kevin Bourassa and Joe Varnell (the first same-sex marriages done in church by publishing banns - Elaine Vautour and Anne Vautour were also married that day- Jan. 2001)

 

For a UCC image try Cheri DiNovo and Paula Barrero and Blanca Mejias (She followed Brent's lead and is often credited with the first "legalized registered same-sex marriage" by marrying them in Sept. 2001)

 

Michael Stark and Michael Leshner were the first once licenses were issued 2003.

 

 

Thanks SG for setting us strait.  All we need to do is substitute another same sex picture - there should be some good ones available from people who were married in my church.  I've attended two lesbian weddings and one gay one, but there have been many more.  Surely someone will give permission to have their pictures used.

 

I was waiting for someone to point that out SG.  That's why I suggested that the picture would look something like the one I chose. I couldn't find a similar one in a United Church.

UCC might in some ways be even more radical, but also more Canadian (modest), in my opinion.

I think Paula Barrero and Blanca Mejias may have been more private. Even in all my collections of images, I only see Cheri alone or lawyers speaking on their behalf, when looking for items related to their marriage.

Back to the opening photo

What if she was thinking, I should buy him a grey tie?

That would be a tie and a shirt to go with it.

Neo...your story made me laugh out loud.  My view on the photos we view is that EVERYONE is "good looking"  White, black, hetero, homo, asian, etc.  Noone has big noses, sticking out ears, big fat tummy's, etc. etc.

 

There is a false sense in the world that the "good looking are also good".  It's a goofy thing that I've noticed since I was very young.  The people in my family would be considered "good looking" but luckily this didn't get a "buy" within our extended family. Acting like a creep, no matter how you looked...was still being a creep.  I still think the world has it wrong and gets hoodwinked every day by a smashing smile and charm dust.

 

I much prefer the "real" photos of a cross section of people's outward appearances....