Jeffrey Trubisz

Member since 1995

I could summarize my photography with three words: "On the Trail...." For more than forty years, I've trekked, scrambled, and hiked hundreds of trails up mountains, through forests, into canyons, and along beaches. What drives me is the desire to immerse in the natural world, to experience awe in its presence, and to connect with its deeper spirit or essence. Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Nature" expresses the idea this way:

In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life---no disgrace, no calamity
(leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground---my head bathed by the blithe air and
uplifted into infinite space---all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball: I am nothing: I see all: the currents
of the Universal Being circulate through me: I am part or parcel of God.

The camera enables me to record that immersion. In a way it serves as Emerson's "transparent eyeball". I hope that in observing my photographs you feel the essence of the place as if you were on the trail.

My first instruction in b/w photography was taught by Elaine Mayes at Hampshire College in 1971 while I was a grad student at UMass/Amherst. And my growth really took off a few years later when I began hiking the mountain trails of New England. Camera in hand I ventured to the West and learned mountaineering skills at Mt. Rainier and the Tetons during my summers. I began a teaching career in the public schools of Melrose, MA and took my students on hiking adventures. Time spent at the Maine Photographic Workshops proved fruitful, working with Richard Brown, a Vermont photographer. I gained experience in the Pacific Northwest working as a summer guide leading backpacking trips. The three national parks near Seattle have been a great resource, especially the WA coast in Olympic Nat'l Park and the trails near Mt. Rainier. And by the 90s my photography evolved into panoramic formats. The wide immersion that the panorama affords brings the viewer deeper into the environment. It is closer to the way that I see, closer to the essence of a scene.

Currently, I'm retired from teaching, living in Vermont and avidly traveling when possible. Yoga, hiking, photographing, and writing keep me busy while in the company of my wife and our two Irish setters. The Franklin & Marshall Alumni Arts Review has published several of my photographs and memoirs. And I continue to show my work at RAA&M; a few years ago I joined Leslie Bartlett for an exhibit called "Large Works". My work is also displayed by the SEABA Gallery in Burlington VT.

Final words: the Hawaiians have a phrase that captures their reverence for their environment: "'Eli 'eli kai maui" which translates as "Let awe possess me." Those words aptly describe occasional moments in my life when I have held a camera up to the natural world.

Jeffrey Trubisz's website