Cameraman ‘Trigger’ to leave Nine after 36 years

Nine News cameraman Trigby Chvastek will finish with the Melbourne newsroom this Friday after 36 with GTV9.

He started with Nine in staging in 1988 as a 21 year old on Sale of the Century hosted by  Tony Barber and Alyce Platt in the Bendigo Street studios.

He then went on to Hey Hey It’s Saturday, In Melbourne Today with Ernie Sigley and Denise Drysdale and Midday with Ray Martin.

Career highlights include working with Wide World of Sports following athletes such as sprinter Patrick Johnson to his home town near Cape York and Tammy Van Wisse’s long distance Ocean Swims from King Island to Apollo Bay.

He eventually worked his way into the newsroom where he once flew in a Hercules plane from Australia to PNG to cover a story on Australian soldiers’ remains from WW2 which were found in a remote plane wreckage. He covered the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and was lucky enough to be inside the stadium to witness Cathy Freeman’s legendary 400 metre gold medal performance.

He was awarded a Quill for his shot of the year with his pictures of Jonathon Dick, who was at the centre of the Jaidyn Leskie case and played a pivotal role in the coverage of Melbourne’s gangland war, even coming face to face in a standoff with gangster Andrew (Benji) Veniamin who was eventually killed by Mick Gatto at La Porcella restaurant -in self defence it was determined.

Chvastek also shot award-winning pictures that went around the world when autistic 11-year-old Luke Shambrook was found after going missing for five days near Lake Eildon.

The brother of reporter-turned-producer, Nicole Chvastek, he will return to his homeland of Rotorua in the North Island Bay of Plenty in New Zealand.