Braver Lens Gallery

Braver Lens Gallery
Selected Photographs, Fall 2023

What does it look like to flourish?

Ellen Morehart, Oklahoma

Eric Law, California

Jim Katona, Pennsylvania

Debra Fisher Goldstein, Minnesota

“In answer to the posed question, ‘what it looks like to flourish’ – I turned to the photo work I do with our community’s non-profits and how they help others flourish. I feel so grateful to be able to contribute in this small way, and while I’d like to think that the goals of these non-profits are more based in ‘blue’ values; I have discovered that people of all political persuasions volunteer countless hours for these organizations.” – Debra Fisher Goldstein, Minnesota

Amy Hebert, Idaho

Brenlee Lin, Oklahoma

Ron McFarland, Iowa

Eric Tolocka, Illinois

Karen Hatch, Virginia

Debra Fisher Goldstein, Minnesota

Bernadette Kathryn, Florida

Fog / MAGA Friends
Photographs by Amy Hebert, Idaho

“Fog obscures what is far away,
As you get closer, it clears
We often do not know what others
need to flourish until we get closer and ask.”

Politics in Everyday Life

Ron McFarland, Iowa

Eric Tolocka, Illinois

Debra Fisher Goldstein, Minneosta

Bernadette Kathryn, Florida

Nova Glover, Vermont

Eric Law, California

Got Guns?
Photographs by Mia Dougherty, Colorado

“On March 22nd, 2021, a mass shooting took place in a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, killing 10 people. The picture above is of this King Soopers renovated after the shooting. The photo on the right is a sign hung in a coffee shop in rural Lake City, Colorado, where owning guns is often seen as necessary for safety purposes. The two contrasting photos leave me with questions about the purpose of guns in the United States.”

Memorial / Blessing
Photographs by Edward Stricker, Virginia

“This large, costly memorial was defaced. Who did it? Why? Vandalism? Anger? Regret? What was chiseled roughly out of the stone: the identifier ‘Mammy’. The deceased was born into slavery (1819), served a family in slavery, and likely cared for by that same family until her death decades after emancipation. They memorialized her. This memorial is one of many in the large, historical Black ‘Oddfellows’ Cemetry in Farmville, VA.”

“My husband and I purchased two figures roughly carved and painted by a Kentucky Appalachian maker. We often stood them together hand in hand. They witness a framed ‘Blessings’ from Bishop Gene Robinson, the first publicly openly gay Episcopal priest to be elected and consecrated a bishop (of New Hampshire, in 2003). Gene’s family were poor tobacco sharecroppers in Kentucky. He was paralyzed and misshapen at birth and then seriously ill such that his parents expected him to die. A postcard of a Keith Haring design offers its own blessing with two figures hand in hand.”

Community

Brenlee Lin, Oklahoma

Ellen Morehart, Oklahoma

Eric Law, California

Debra Fisher Goldstein, Minnesota

Ron McFarland, Iowa

Jim Katona, Pennsylvania

Karen Hatch, Virginia

Perspective
Photographs by Alicia and Nova Glover, Vermont

The view from Alicia’s Len’s (above) at the same moment Nova (to the right) is taking his photo from a 360° Lens — you can see Alicia to the left in Nova’s image.

“An interesting continuation I’ve imagined would be my Aunt Robyn with her old Polaroid taking a photo of both of us from yet another perspective — I recall as a child how excited we all were for “instant” photos, then how exciting my first “touch screen” camera was & now witnessing what Nova can do with the latest Insta360° is a ‘flourish forward’ perspective to have.”

The REAL Boss

“Lourde Elefaun Rao, third of my four children, far from the biggest & no longer the littlest, barefoot grounded, triumphantly flourishes the biggest pumpkin he can carry from the field all by himself.”