Aesthetics: Patrick Trefz

A photographer’s maximalist collection of food porn, collages, travel vignettes, and original imagery from the road.
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Ode to Travel 

In August of 2020, the ridge across from Patrick Trefz’s home in the Santa Cruz Mountains was ablaze. Forced to evacuate, he and some friends drove north to Mendocino, where he had a brush with mortality—only it wasn’t related to his life, but to the existence of his photographs. 

“I thought that all my work was going to be dust,” he told me. “Then, luckily, my place didn’t burn down. I have four giant archival boxes filled to the rim with all of my work from when I first started shooting, in the mid-’80s. I got to look at my slides and negatives again.” 

This spate of lightning-induced wildfires, overlaid with long stretches at home during the pandemic, led Patrick to consider some kind of longform collection of his work. As he explored the idea, he found that COVID not only slowed things down enough for him to deeply immerse himself in his photo archive, but also gave him time to do what he loves to do when he’s not on the road: cook, paint, make collages. That realization then led him to reflect on the crucial elements that make travel compelling for him as a photographer and artist, a process that coalesced into Ode to Travel, his new book. 

San Sebastián, Basque Country, 2019. Tamborrada of Donostia is a celebratory drum festival held every year on January 20. At midnight, in the Konstituzio Plaza in the Alde Zaharra/Parte Vieja (“Old Town”), the mayor raises the flag of San Sebastián. The festival lasts for 24 hours. 
I was staying with the Kidman family at their house in Uki, New South Wales, 2008. We went for a really long drive through the woods to get to the surf.
Christian Beamish, Pigeon Point Lighthouse, California, 2003. Christian had written about working as a handyman, living among the seals and birds. Capturing him in his environment eventually led to a story for The Surfer’s Journal titled “Meditations From a Forgotten Shore” [TSJ 31.3].
Greg Long and I met in the Azores a few weeks after 9/11. On a remote stretch of one of the outer islands, we searched for a place to stay the night in a small village. With no hotels in sight, a family opened their doors to us, and the father shared a moonshine so potent you could run a moped on it.
A family camping trip in France, 1982. I’m the kid second from the right, in the blue shirt and the red shorts.
A trip to the Galápagos with some friends, 2004. Our days on the islands were simple: We’d dive off the pier into turquoise waters, surf the town’s main reefbreaks, or go fishing.
La Chambre d’Amour, Anglet/Biarritz, 1988. Back then, you could camp right by the ocean.
Midnight cookout in Yakutat, Alaska, 2001. Andrew Kidman cooked burritos stuffed with eggs, potatoes, jalapeños, and avocado over our campfire. When night finally fell upon us, we noticed one of our car’s tires had gone flat. Alone on the point, shrouded in the smells of our feast, we began to feel exposed and vulnerable to nature. I suggested we walk the edge of the bay back to Yakutat, but in the dark, an Alaska brown bear, or the even larger Saint Elias silver grizzly, could shred us to pieces. We decided to attempt to paddle on our shortboards, so we slipped into our rubber suits, booties, gloves, and hoods, fastened tight in preparation for the frigid waters. The lights of Yakutat flared off in the distance—but we made no progress. Stories of great white sharks and outgoing tides swallowing surfers into the sea plagued our minds as we lumbered through the dark. Around three and a half hours later, my foot numb from a hole in my bootie, we finally hauled ourselves into the harbor. We trudged back to our lodging, exhausted, in monastic silence.

“It’s about the lust for travel, and wanting that wanderlust,” he said. “Food is a big part of traveling. It’s a window into a country’s culture. It’s how you get to really experience a place. After two years of researching my adventures, and scanning slides, and diving into the cuisine of different countries, and cooking those dishes, and exploring the history and anthropology of those places, it’s all come together.” 

We were seated at the dining table in his home, morning sun poking through the windows, mugs of coffee in our hands. Patrick was going through proofs of his book, making notes in the margins. It was hard to distinguish what was a note and what was the actual page; the book drips with Patrick’s thumbprint. Encompassing photos, collages, recipes, handwritten bits, wine stains, and flecks of paella, it’s sensorial, as if you’re perusing it amid overflowing plates of steaming dishes and a mélange of mouthwatering smells. 

The pages of the book also seemed to match Patrick’s home. Wooden, rustic, fecund, protruding from the green hillside as if of it more than on it, you get the sense of a palimpsest, layers upon layers. This impression was apparent in the kitchen, where Patrick’s cast-iron cookware carried the echoes of meals past. And it was especially apparent in his studio, where surf pics were stacked atop food pics stacked atop paintings stacked atop collages, maximalist and messy. In Ode to Travel’s foreword, author and shaper Christian Beamish writes, “[Patrick] carries an old-world understanding of style and lineage that makes the cruder and even naïve aspects of American life seem more laughable than lamentable. In person and in his photographs, he can catch people off guard: the overly earnest neophyte catches a wisecrack, severed goats’ heads lie piled on the floor. Ode to Travel lives up to its title—it is travel with an edge, as travel ought to be, where the unexpected and the sensuous are revealed by a willingness to explore.” 

Motozintla de Mendoza, Chiapas,  Mexico, 1990.
Aletsch Glacier, Switzerland, 1994. Due to global warming, this whole cave that you see with the bridge has melted away. They used to store Swiss white wines in there.
Shawn “Barney” Barron, Galápagos Islands, 2004. At night, we’d paint, and then hang out and watch the sunset from this little bluff. Then we’d go to these communal table dinners in this harbor town, and Barney would buy five or six bottles of wine to share with groups of backpackers. He wanted to make sure that everyone was having a good time.
Guatemala, 1993. The cool, foggy air in Quetzaltenango surprised us after driving from the hot and humid beaches of Oaxaca and Chiapas in Mexico. This friendly family served me a hearty, red-hot bowl of kak’ik [turkey soup].
Souk in Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia, 1986.
Cabo Verde, 2005.
Adam Replogle in British Columbia, Canada, 2000.
León, Nicaragua, 1993. On the road leaving Managua, protestors had built barricades, blocked the highway with trucks and tractors, and set barrels ablaze. We pulled over onto the side of the road, deliberating our next move. That’s when a Belgian ambassador, as lost as we were in the thick of what seemed like intense conflict, approached us. He suggested we grab our documents and make a dash for the steep jungle valley below. From there, he said, we could hike 15 kilometers back to the US embassy. The army advanced, seated in the shovels of big tractors with their guns pointed straight at protestors. Eventually, after some negotiation, the barricades dissolved and the protestors retreated to some momentary semblance of peace. We resumed our journey.

Patrick’s father, a professional photographer, gave him his first camera, a Minolta SR-T 101, when he was 14, and Patrick started shooting skateboarding and still-life tableaus he’d make in the home studio. Born in Germany, he’d had an itinerant childhood—living between Düsseldorf and Paris, lots of family trips—and saw photography as a means to travel. Food, too, was a big part of his upbringing. He’d help his mother cook elaborate meals, and he worked in kitchens in his early teens. 

In 1986, he and his girlfriend traveled to Tunisia. “It was not a beach vacation at all,” said Patrick. “I was only 15, but I was determined to delve into the lesser-known side of the culture there. We visited the souks, where I shot halal-killed goats’ heads and strange fruits and fish. It really opened my eyes.” 

His taste for travel later took him through Central America. He continued living on the road afterward, exploring surf and snowboard spots in South America. In 1993 he landed in Santa Cruz, which has remained his home base for the last three decades. 

This was for an assignment to cover Jim Denevan’s first story in The Surfer’s Journal [“Denevan’s Wake,” TSJ 14.4]. It was taken from the Cliff House, looking south toward Ocean Beach, San Francisco, whilst we feasted over eggs Benedict and pancakes and hot coffee. 
Cabo Verde, 2005. This local kid was dominating out there.
Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, 1990. I was on a road trip from California to Costa Rica.
Filming for my 2007 documentary, Thread, 2005.
Guéthary, southwest France, 1989. We met a group of kids from the Channel Islands, England. Cool peeps. This is JP.
Goofing around with my dad, 1987. He lived in Thailand at the time, and I flew out there to hang out with him. Lots of laughter.
Souks in Tunis, 1986. This was my first solo trip overseas. I went to Tunisia when I was 15 years old, armed with a Minolta SR-T 101 and 30 rolls of expired Agfa slide film. I had spent most of the prior summer working as a dishwasher to make this trip happen.
At the mouth of the Qiantang River, the Silver Dragon awakens, spiraling and crashing for many miles toward Hangzhou Bay. 2009.

Through the early aughts he did photo trips for Surfer to Alaska, Scotland, the Azores, Mexico, New Zealand, and Chile. Eventually he branched into film, springboarding back and forth between print and motion projects. His 2007 film Thread melds surf, skate, music, and art—and would later become a book. His 2012 book Surfers’ Blood would later become a movie. 

“Patrick is distinctly European but simultaneously at home in all places—and also not at home,” says artist and chef Jim Denevan, the subject of Patrick’s 2020 documentary, Man in the Field. “He was perceived as a photographer for so long. When he got seriously into filmmaking, it took people a while to perceive that he’s a filmmaker. For creative people, it’s easy to be pigeonholed. It’s great to be able to step out of people’s perceptions of you. Patrick’s constantly challenged himself and put himself in circumstances that are creative and fulfilling. He’s an artist who explores his curiosity. And also—he’s a great cook.” 

This kid’s parents had a little store in Guatemala. I became friendly with the family. 2002.
I was staying with my friend Lance in Kauai in 1996, and he took me up to Dick Brewer’s house. Our plan was to take photos showing off this board with a backdrop of Hanalei Bay. As we drove out there, Dick’s old car broke down.
Japan, 2009.

“Ode to Travel draws from all of this,” Patrick told me. “I’m excited to see these recipes, photographs, and my travels all come together in this crescendo. Here’s a section that I love,” he added, and read aloud: “‘Days on the road in this nation of rust, red soil, and nights fueled by Victoria Bitters and gin and tonics taught me that a real home, as Bruce Chatwin says, is not a house, but the road.’” He looked up from the page. “Food is one of the strongest connections we can make with a place. It’s our whole life. It’s more important than art or a painting, because it’s essential.” 

I asked him what he loves most about a life exploring the globe. “Diversity,” he said. “The way it opens you up. I’ve always been curious to see what’s around the corner. And the cool thing is now I have lifelong friends from all over the world.”

Ode to Travel 

Simon & Schuster 

simonandschuster.com

[Feature Image Caption: Portugal collage, 2002 to 2023.]

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