The Melting Billy
Time in Nature
Will turn
The mirror of reflection
Back toward its source,
The Perceiver.
-A.S, 18.11.2024
Fortescue, Feb 2024. Pentax MX, Kodak Pro Image 100.
Near the blowhole, Tasman Peninsula. Feb 2025. Pentax MX, Kodak Pro Image 100.
Breaking Wave, Rocks. Feb 2025. Pentax MX, Kodak Pro Image 100.
For many years I resisted the urge to take the classic photo of Tasmania’s most iconic landmark.
The Hole and the Crown, Feb 2025. Pentax MX, Kodak Pro Image 100.
It is a mountain that is over-photographed and over-visited. I can’t imagine taking a photo of this place and thinking I am doing something new here. As the most photographed mountain in Tasmania / Lutruwita, any photographer worth their silver would think twice before taking a shot of this mountain and ask, ‘What am I giving here that hasn’t been given before?’
Pandanni Grove, Cradle Valley. Feb 2025, Pentax MX, Kodak Pro Image 100.
It is a blessing and a curse, being bestowed with so much natural beauty.
The mountain’s quiet grace is interrupted daily by helicopters flying by it. Buses drive thousands of people back and forth day in, day out, who wish to behold this place. The tracks that have been worn into the rocks of these mountains can be seen from kilometres away, high up in the sky.
Open Valley, Glaciated Hillsides, Feb 2025. Pentax MX, Kodak Pro Image 100.
Recently, I visited the Reserve with my folks and we stayed at Waldheim Cabins.
When we started the Dove Lake Circuit, I couldn’t resist. I stood on Glacier Rock and I pulled out the old Pentax and looked through the viewfinder, across Dove Lake at the fabled Cradle.
Years of aversion disappeared in a second when I looked at the scene and thought, well, that’s pretty remarkable. I pushed the button and I heard the shutter. The time had come for me to take the classic angle. For better or worse, I took the shot.
Baby in the Cradle. Feb 2025. Pentax MX, Kodak Pro Image 100.
-A.S. 5/4/26, Brushy Creek.
The world seems to be speeding up. It is time we learnt how to slow down.
Chessboard. Sep 2022, Pentax MX, Portra 800.
It seems to me that the world is speeding up. People seem obsessed with doing things faster and faster. We gotta be able to do more and more. We use more stuff than the previous generation. Stuff isn’t made to last, it’s made to sell. And to satisfy the global consumer’s needs and desires, all this stuff has to be moved around, from one end of the globe to the other. Continuously.
Despite knowing the solutions to the climate crises, ecological crises and cost of living crises, we fail to act out these solutions. We continue to barge ahead with our way of life that we know is killing the planet. As individuals we want to do better. As a collective society, we have been unable to alter the course of action that has brought us to our current predicament and we continue to hurtle us toward a precipice which looms on our horizon line.
Road along the Huon River. Sep 2022, Pentax MX, Portra 800.
We need to slow down. We need to stop moving mass around. Mass is the inherent quality of matter, of stuff. The greater the mass, the more energy it takes to move it around. At the moment, the primary mode of moving things around is through the burning of fossil fuels. Burning raw materials from the Earth that have accumulated over millions of years. Burning these materials, be it oil or coal, results in the emission of greenhouse gases, in particular carbon dioxide. The accumulation of these gases in our atmosphere trap heat from the sun. We live on a planet that is heating up from the billions of engines we turn on and run every day. This heating introduces more energy to the climactic system, resulting in catastrophic climate patterns which create living conditions vastly different to what life has evolved to cope with. In other words, homo sapiens, the human species is driving a change that is endangering the ongoing survival of all life on Earth.
Little boat, big river. Sep 2022, Pentax MX, Portra 800.
We need to turn the engines off. All the cars, all the ships, all the planes. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. We do not have time to transition. We need to stop the movement now. We need to heal the earth, starting immediately. This is the solution. We need to stop moving mass around through the use of fossil fuels.
But how to do this when we rely on fossil fuels to get our daily bread? How can we ask to not to drive or fly any more when we have built our way of life centred on these movement of things? Imagine the suffering of not moving food to where it needs to go. Imagine the chaos that would cause! So how do we turn the engines off without half the world starving to death!? I guess the elusive answer to this question is why we haven’t turned the engines off yet.
Bridge across Huon River, Sep 2022.. Pentax MX, Portra 800.
I don’t think looking to technology for the magic cure is the solution to our problems. Renewable energy isn’t going to solve the fundamental problem: exponential expansion of the human population on planet Earth and our increasing demand for more raw materials, transformed to suit our needs and desires.
We have exceeded the carrying capacity of the Earth. We want too much. I find it sad that this fact is ignored day to day. For our leaders to stand up and enact the solutions, we all must be willing to change the way we live our lives. Dramatically. We need to be able to give up all the things which we think we need in order to exist. It is going to be tough, but these changes will take place within a few generations whether we are willing to change our ways or not. We still have a choice. But if we fail to change our way now, that choice will be taken away from us.
The solution is incredibly difficult, but very simple at heart. Instead of speeding up, we need to slow down. Collectively. We all need to work together on this. All 8 billion of us people. It is in our best interest, after all.
-A.S. 28/3/25, Brushy Creek.
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” - Joseph Campbell
Folded Quartzite. Pentax MX, Nov 2020.
“The descent is a mythological term for the period during and after a powerful event in which the ego has been overwhelmed by the unconscious. Energy that is normally available to consciousness falls into the unconscious.” - Martin Shaw
Tilted Peak. Pentax MX, Nov 2020.
“This is known as journeying to the underworld, a state in which creative energies are going through transformations that the unaware ego may know nothing about.” -Martin Shaw
Chaotic Jumble. Pentax MX, Nov 2020.
-A.S. 22/3/2025, Nipaluna / Hobart.
“The survival of wilderness, of places we do not change, where we allow the existence even of creatures we perceive as dangerous- is necessary. Our sanity probably requests it. Whether we go to those places or not, we need to know they exist.”
Wendell Berry, ‘The World Ending Fire’. All quotes in this post are from the short essay ‘Getting Along with Nature (1982)’.
Grazing Land, NE Tasmania. Pentax MX, 2021.
“But unlike other creatures, humans must make a choice as to the kind and scale of the difference they make. If they choose too small a difference, they diminish their humanity. If they choose to make too great a difference, they diminish nature, and narrow their subsequent choices, ultimately, they diminish or destroy themselves.”
St Columba Falls, Pyengana, Tasmania. Pentax MX 2021.
In the middle. NE Tasmania. Pentax MX, 2021.
“I think there is a bad reason to go to the wilderness. We must not go there to escape the ugliness and the dangers of the present human economy. We must not let ourselves feel that to go there is to escape… There can be continuity between them and there must be.”
Rainbow Valley, NE Tasmania. Pentax MX, 2021.
“To make this continuity between the natural and the human, we have only two sources of instruction: nature herself and our cultural tradition.”
A summer moment
Bob Dylan sang
like only he can
and the happiness
flooded me as I sat
and drank beer
on our verandah
in the realm of
the setting sun.
-A.S. Jan 2021, South Hobart.
The old tent and Barn Bluff. Hasselblad 500CM, Delta 100, Apr 2023.
Birth Mother
The streetlight burns yellow
Brings the dancing rain into focus
The mountain behind, she glows
There stands kunanyi, the birth mother.
Wrangling with all kinds of bulls,
The cowboy tips his hat,
Perfect teeth in the break of that smile,
Before he begins his life or death dance
With the horned animal that is much bigger
Than himself.
Ride the devil, ride the wind
Ride the bull, as it sees red, red, red.
Grab it by the horns and spread your legs
Ride the bandit till there is no red left.
Justice is a dangerous thing
It makes us believe we are right
In whatever we choose to deliver.
It’s the second edge to the sword
We call Liberty, it’s the ability
To wound as well as to lift,
To counter it, we need a shield,
One that defends against fear.
The streetlight burns yellow,
Accentuates the smudge on the
Sunroom’s window, as I stare out
To the street, the street that starts
At the foot of the mountain,
Great Kunanyi,
The birth mother.
-A.S. Jan 2021, South Hobart.
Echo Point Hut, Lake St Clair. Hasselblad 500CM, Delta 100, July 23.
Forgetfulness
Where do the memories go?
One minute they are there
Then they are gone
Slipped down to the abyss.
I wonder if there is a
Collective pool of memories
Where they swim like
Little fish in a big pond,
And whether some
Memories act like big fish
That want to swallow
The little ones.
When our deeds are done
What will remain?
When our consciousness is done,
Will our memories dissipate?
-AS. Jan 2021, South Hobart.
See through canvas- nearly waterproof! Hasselblad 500CM, Delta 100, Apr 2023.
Hidden places may be visible; but in order to see them, they must be found.
Tree Skeletons and Mist. Pentax MX, Ilford 50 BW, Dec 2019.
Once a place is found, it is no longer hidden.
Tree Silhouette, Dolerite Skyline. Pentax MX, Ilford 50 BW, Dec 2019.
A place that’s been found may be forgotten.
Lake ‘Whose Name Shall Never Be Spoken’. Pentax MX, Ilford 50 BW, Dec 2019.
Once a place is forgotten, it becomes hidden once more.
Accidental double exposure Pentax MX, Ilford 50 BW, Dec 2019.
-A.S. 1/3/25, Brushy Creek.
“Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land. By land is meant all of the things on and over, or in the earth. Harmony with the land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left.”
All quotes in this post are from- Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac
Sunrise from Frenchman’s Cap. Olympus Em-1, 2015.
“The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: “What good is it?” If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.”
Pandani and Snow. Olympus Em-1, 2015.
“The question is, does the educated citizen know he is only a cog in an ecological mechanism? That if he will work with that mechanism, his mental wealth and his material wealth can expand indefinitely? But that if he refuses to work with it, it will ultimately grind him to dust? If education does not teach us these things, then what is education for?”
“All are aspects of one entity, the living mountain. The disintegrating rock, the nurturing rain, the quickening sun, the seed, the root, the bird, all are one.”
All quotes in this post are by Nan Shepherd from ‘The Living Mountain’.
Mt Robinson. Hasselblad 500CM, Ektar 100, Nov 2023.
“Summer on the high plateau can be delectable as honey, it can also be a roaring scourge. To those who love the place, both are good, since both are part of its essential nature.”
Quartzite Range, Pedder Impoundment beyond. Hasselblad 500CM, Ektar 100, Nov 2023.
“The inaccessibility of this rock is part of its power. Silence belongs to it.”
Formidable Fortress. Hasselblad 500CM, Ektar 100, Nov 2023.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” - Chinese proverb attributed to Lao Tzu
Sign out the front of the workshop on Sandy Bay Rd. Hasselblad 500CM, 2019.
In terms of outdoor adventure, I would say that the first step isn’t a physical step, but a conceptual one.
The first step is the conception of the idea to undertake a journey. A worthy adventure is bound to be fraught with difficulties, unknown risks; yet it will lure the undertaker towards the chosen destination with the promise of a reward.
Once the idea has taken hold of the adventurer’s imagination, the plotting and scheming begins.
Easel and Level. Hasselblad 500CM, May 2020.
A lot of my friends ask me when they see me;
“Slozzy, have you got any adventures coming up?”
The answer to this is always:
“Yes.”
Every time. I am always planning multiple adventures simultaneously. If I’m at work, I’ll be planning what I’m going to do when I knock off. Which route will I ride home? Will the giant zucchini fit into my bike pannier? These are my every day adventures. They are generally not very exciting, but these mini adventures get me through the week.
Once we move past the everyday adventures, there are the multi-day adventures, these are usually my days free from work. Multiple days open up the possibility of visiting some places that are truly out of one’s way. Tops of cliffs, the white water of rivers, scrub wriggling deep and tangled in the Tasmanian wilderness.
And then there are the ‘big’ trips. These are the long term projects. Often they span years rather than weeks or months in preparation. Eventually they do result in a trip and it is usually rather memorable. These are the adventures I live for.
Planning an adventure is a bit like aging a good whiskey. The process can’t be rushed. It takes as long as it takes.
Sketch Map, SW Tasmania. Hasselblad 500CM, Oct 2020.
‘So what’s your next ‘big’ adventure Slozzy?’
Well, my dear readers, rest assured. I am planning something. This one has been aging in the barrel for seven years. I have been struggling to find a willing companion to undertake this trip with me. But over the last year, the mystery companion has solidified into a real person and now the idea is beginning to take shape.
Some of you already know what this project is. Some of you don’t. But if you keep following these posts, you will all eventually find out.
For now, let me give you a hint.
I have recently started reading a riveting book by the Tasmanian historian, Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, titled ‘Closing Hell’s Gates’.
Some might say I am doing my research. Some might say I am plotting and scheming. Some might say I am stark raving mad.
And all of them would probably be right.
-A.S. 1/2/25, Lenah Valley