Me.
Thomas Brauer priestographer
The older I get, and the more I have done, the less I want to say about myself.
I wish I had more hair.
I wish I’d spent more time being active.
I wish I’d spent more time building relationships.
I wish I could grow a big, Lord of the Rings type beard.
I am a dad and a husband.
I am a follower of Jesus.
I am a user of the Oxford/Harvard comma and the emdash.
I am getting better at most of these things. Slowly. Except the hair and the beard. That seems to be what it is.
Apart from that, I am an Anglican priest who spends a little time teaching, thinking, writing, and photographing. I’ve had the bizarre blessing of being able to do some or all of this on four different continents in five different countries. Some of them feature in the pictures on this website.
I am a learner, too. I completed my Doctoral studies in 2020, though due to the Covid-19 pandemic I have not yet been able to get slapped on the head by the hat of learning (yes, that really is a thing and I’m bummed I didn’t get to do it). My thesis was called From Portraits of Absence to Analogies of Resurrection: A Theological Engagement with Photographic Phenomenology. I explored the ways in which the experience of photographs can support our understanding of faith, and how our experience of faith can support our understanding of photographs. This research was completed through the University of St. Andrews, and the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts. My supervisors were the Rev. Prof. David Brown, and Dr. Natasha O’Hear.
We are from Canada. I got to grow up on the North Shore of the Great Lakes. I’ve lived in Sault Ste. Marie, Rydal Bank, Bruce Mines, Toronto, Saskatoon, Whitehorse, Edmonton, and Smiths Falls. I also got to live, learn, and serve in Uganda, South Africa, Scotland, and New Zealand. Following the itinerant Messiah has meant we have had to wander after Him a bit.
I am a photographer. I make images of the world as God made it, and what humans have made of it.
I want, more than anything, for humans to find reconciliation with themselves, with each other, with their world, and with their God.
The Images
The images included in FiatPixel are made, not taken. The images are intended to lead to contemplation, and to spark the imagination to go deeper than the surface of the image.