Tim's Journal: Yolanda Avila, Coping Through a Lens

A photographer knows there are many ways to filter light. Bright light, dim light, and sometimes harsh light.

Yolanda Avila has had her share of harsh light as she copes with our son’s recovery from schizophrenia. The textbooks say that recovery is not linear. In other words, there are many ups and downs. Too many to count, sometimes.

But Yolanda has managed to cope. She has found that one of her best tools is her camera.

A native of Ecuador, Yolanda had never used a camera until one Mother’s Day when Timothy was about five years old and she opened a gift that took her by surprise. Unexpected, but welcome: a 35mm SLR Canon that she quickly learned to use.

On her way to getting her teacher’s certificate, she stumbled onto a documentary photography course. Her project: documenting the small village of La Paz in northern Ecuador where her grandmother lived and where she had spent summers as a child. The result: a series of 40 black-and-white images of people going about daily activities that has been exhibited in New Jersey, New York and Ecuador.

That was just the start of a hobby that has engaged her ever since. Like Tim’s recovery, it has had its ups and downs. She wasn’t always able to devote as much time to photography after she became a teacher, but it was always there as an outlet when she needed to find serenity in the images captured by her lens.

There were other projects: a sugar refinery where her uncle worked, a Colonial Church where her cousin was a priest, a Quinceanera celebration, the flora and fauna of Galapagos.

Indeed, photography took her to new worlds all the time. We have been fortunate to be able to travel, and Yolanda produces a book of photographs from each of our trips.

It isn’t her only coping tool. She has also found meditation helps. And she found a niche in education—teaching autistic children at a public school in Elizabeth—that gives her a sense of doing something about these diseases of the brain that have touched our family.

Two of her photographs are in two separate exhibitions now. 

At the Union County Senior Art Show, her photograph of the Oslo Opera House won second place in the professional photography category and can be viewed through July 14 at the Liberty Hall atrium in Union. The photograph shows people relaxing inside this awe-inspiring structure.

At the RSI Bank’s annual art exhibit at its main office in Rahway, Yolanda has a photograph of two mimes dancing the tango in the streets of Buenos Aires. That exhibit runs through the end of June. You can vote for your favorite piece from the exhibition at https://www.rsibanking.com/home/home by clicking on the rotating Celebration banner.

Photography has changed dramatically over the years with the emergence of the digital age. The darkroom I built for Yolanda in our basement has been replaced by our Apple computer.

But for Yolanda, it’s still a welcome friend in a world of unexpected circumstances. Perhaps, a filter for the harsh light.