Olegas Truchanas
| Olegas Truchanas | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1923 Lithuania |
| Died | 6 January 1972 (aged 48–49) South West Tasmania, Australia |
| Cause of death | Accidentally drowned |
| Nationality | Lithuanian–Australian |
| Occupation | Photographer |
| Known for | His photography helped to raise public awareness of the environmental importance of south-west Tasmania |
Olegas Truchanas (1923 - 6 January 1972) was a Lithuanian-Australian conservationist and nature photographer.
He was a key figure in the attempt to stop the damming of the ecologically sensitive Lake Pedder in South West Tasmania by the Hydro Electricity Commission. His photographs, along with those of his protégé, Peter Dombrovskis, helped raise public awareness of the importance of the south-west Tasmania.
Truchanas was born in Lithuania. At 1941 he graduated Šiauliai gymnasium. After the 1945 fall of Lithuania to the USSR, he fled to Munich, Germany. Though he enrolled in a law degree at UNRRA University, he was sent to a displaced persons camp, and subsequently migrated to Tasmania in 1948.
Upon arriving in Tasmania, Truchanas worked for a zinc company in Hobart for two years, as was necessary under Australian migration law of the time. It was at this time that he began to take an interest in the Tasmanian wilderness.
In 1958, Truchanas became the first person in recorded history to kayak the length of the dangerous Serpentine and Gordon Splits.
Most of Truchanas' early photographs were lost when his house was destroyed in the Hobart bushfire in 1967. However, over the next five years, he substantially rebuilt his collection of photos of the Lake Pedder area. Though, as a clerk temporarily employed by the Hydro Electricity Commission, Truchanas was forbidden to speak about the increasing controversy surrounding the impending damming, his photographs began to play an important role in publicity for the campaign. He was once quoted as stating "This vanishing world is beautiful beyond our dreams and contains in itself rewards and gratifications never found in an artificial landscape or man-made objects."
...
Wikipedia