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 . " After taking what are now among the only remaining records of the pre-dam Lake Pedder , Truchanas realised that the campaign was lost , and turned his attention to the Pieman , Gordon and Franklin Rivers . In 1972 , Truchanas drowned in the Gordon River after slipping and falling into the current . His body was found , trapped beneath a log , by Dombrovskis
Hobart bushfire
1967 Tasmanian fires
Olegas Truchanas