First release of Olegas Truchanas images

Truchanas’ work has been widely praised by photographers, artists and environmentalists, but until now the images have rarely been seen and never before published in significant quantity. Melva Truchanas has released two of them to promote awareness of the possibility of restoring the lake to its original state.

OLEGAS Truchanas photographs feature on two new greetings cards to be launched this week by Senator Bob Brown and Olegas’ wife, Melva Truchanas.

Truchanas’ work has been widely praised by photographers, artists and environmentalists, but until now the images have rarely been seen and never before published in significant quantity. Melva Truchanas has released two of them to promote awareness of the possibility of restoring the lake to its original state.

An informative text on the back of the cards encapsulates the story of Lake Pedder and provides a brief background on Truchanas.

For Tasmanians, the name of Olegas Truchanas is synonymous with the lost Lake Pedder. Slide shows of his haunting photographs of the lake before its inundation by the Hydro Electric Commission played to standing-room-only audiences in the late 1960s.

Truchanas, for some time a clerk at the Hydro, was prevented from speaking out about the destruction of what he saw as one of the jewels of Tasmanian landscape. Instead, he let the pictures speak for him. So powerful were the images that a campaign to save the lake sprang up; it did not succeed, but it formed the foundation of a robust environmental movement.

He had spent many years exploring and photographing the wilds of Tasmania and was often the first non-indigenous person to traverse many parts of the rugged interior of the island. In 1967, the Hobart bushfires destroyed his home and with it virtually his entire collection of images.

He set out to retrace his exploration and recording of the wilderness, but in 1972, while photographing the Gordon River on a mission to replace his lost slides, he was tragically drowned. The cards are published as a tribute to his memory and to his pioneering work in raising consciousness of Tasmania’s threatened natural beauty.

Public launch by Bob Brown and Melva Truchanas
The Green Shop
83 Harrington Street
Hobart
Friday 25 August at 5:30pm