In photography, Peter’s black and white prints have won awards and appeared in exclusive exhibits, including at the Harvard Gutman Library. In addition, Peter taught photography at the New England School of Photography (NESOP) and is a founding member of the Argentum Fine Art Photographers, a group of photographers in New England promoting the importance of control in the photographic process, and he is author of Using the Zone System, used in black and white photography courses at NESOP for over five years.

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Peter is also passionate about scuba diving and is a PADI Master Scuba Diver Instructor, an SDI Scubility Instructor (for people with disabilities), a research diver, and a technical diver.​ Peter participated in several scientific expeditions aboard expedition vessels from the Scripps Insititute, Texas A&M University, and others and has appeared on NOVA documentaries as a diver/scientist. Peter was the first to recognize as a new species while still in its natural habitat,  Codine schmeideri, named after the expedition leader, Robert Schmeider. He was also among the first divers to experiment with Nitrox and participated in several of the dives that helped establish the current Nitrox schedule.

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Perhaps his longest standing interest, the guitar has been a part of Peter’s life since the third grade. At the request of NASA astronaut and Commander of the International Space Station (ISS), Suni Williams, Peter Avila wrote a song called Space Station Blues that was played at the astronauts’ reception the night before launch of Discovery and aboard the International Space Station. He has also performed in several solo presentations and aught guitar privately.

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​Peter’s most recent interest is writing and he is currently working on his first novel, The Message., parts of which are beginning to appear in the Blog.

 

Thank you for your interest!