‘A Journey in Images: The Photography of Yun Thwaits’ Explores Life’s Timeless Beauty

Entering the glass doors of the Harvard Ed Portal gallery on Nov. 29, one could hear traditional Chinese folk music permeating the atmosphere of the room.

Yun Thwaits, a graduate of the Harvard Extension School, opened her newest exhibit, “A Journey in Images: The Photography of Yun Thwaits,” showcasing her life’s journey through photography. Her exhibit included stunning natural landscapes, mystical wildlife, and snapshots of everyday ordinary street life.

Thwaits was raised in Inner Mongolia, China, and immigrated to the United States where she worked as a Commercial Loan Approval Officer for Bank of America. After working for 27 years, she retired in 2017 in pursuit of her lifelong dream and hobby, photography. After decades of corporate burnout, Thwaits’ interest in photography led her to take photography courses at Harvard Extension School. Thwaits’ passion for photography enabled her to travel across the world photographing wildlife and landscapes, traveling as far as Australia, South Africa, Europe, China, and Japan.

The gallery was structured with white walls that transformed the small gallery space into a portal full of Thwaits’ golden-framed photographs.

“When I was thinking about the design of the exhibition, I also wanted to take visitors on a journey through the exhibition itself,” said Brian Hone, the exhibit’s gallery curator.

Many of Thwaits’ photographs featured were still-lifes, including a photograph titled “Harvard Montage,” which depicted a translucent glass pane with two halves of different faces in front of what looks to be one of Harvard Yard’s gates. Similarly, “Weirdness at MIT,” a black-and-white photograph of the MIT Strata building, gazed up at the geometric forms on the side of the building. Thwaits’ still-life photography enticed viewers into her world of ambiguity, inducing one’s mind into a state of mystery and intrigue.

Furthermore, the gallery’s deliberate use of grayish-purple backgrounds behind gold-decorated frames, as well as the pairings of solid black frames with black-and-white photographs, mirrored the marriage between gallery background, frame, and photograph.

Thwait’s gallery was grouped thematically, with certain black-and-white photographs assigned in one area of the gallery, drawing distinction from her landscape photographs that highlighted natural viewsheds and animated wildlife in their native habitats. For instance, “Rolling a Fireball,” a snapshot perfectly aligned with an elephant’s tusk at the border of the glowing setting sun that appears to be “rolled” by the elephant, is featured at the very end of the gallery walk-through, compared to some of Thwaits’ landscapes positioned at the start that picture everything from mountains peaks beside sapphire-blue river deltas to smooth mounds of impeccably white snow.

“I like almost every category: landscape and wildlife and even street photography,” Thwaits said.

Thwaits’ photography lured viewers into fantastical realms that she captures from her snapshots of beauty found in the mundane to her photographs of the majestic.

“It takes a lot of patience. Many times you have to go to a site, you have to wait til the lighting is good,” said Alan Thwaits, her husband of 28 years.

Alan went on to comment on Thwaits’ extreme dedication to photography.

“For instance, some of the birds [she photographed], she had to wait for hours for the birds to come, or for them to take off right. There’s a lot of serendipity involved in taking good photography.”

Thwaits’ journey with photography has driven her journey with life, revealing her timeless experiences with nature and beautiful sights that have touched her heart.

As Mei Zhang, a good friend of Thwaits from the Boston Chinese Photographers Association, said: “this [exhibit] is just an accumulation of her knowledge and hard work.”

Ultimately, Thwaits’ exhibit is the embodiment of her journey with photography, as well as her journey through life so far — from her appreciation of unnoticed everyday sights in city life as a corporate loan officer to her love for grandiose and elegant forms in nature as a traveling photographer. Thwaits’ photography is a testament to her life and her journey through it, hence the exhibit’s fitting title: “A Journey in Images.”

Looking forward, Thwaits hopes to continue traveling the world alongside her husband with her camera in hand. In particular, Thwaits and her husband are looking forward to their trip to Japan in March.

“Through the lens, you can see the different world,” said Thwaits.