An elongated interlude...

Dear Melting Billy Readers,

It was over five years ago that I first started the weekly blog posts. I know some of you have been following and reading them before it was called the Melting Billy, when it was the Boiling Billy and before that when it was Mountains of Tasmania. Like a blog, our life goes through many transformations as the years go on and nothing ever quite stays the same.

You may have noticed that I haven’t been writing much of late. I also haven’t been getting out on as many trips to take photographs as much as I would like. I have been finding it harder and harder to muster up the energy and creativity to continue the weekly posts.

I’m sure I’m also not the only one who has been finding it harder to make ends meet these last couple of years. I feel like I have to work more to earn less than I did ten years ago! Sadly this means that I have had much less spare time, spare time which is so crucial for the development of the arts and creativity.

“I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”

This is to me one of the most memorable quotes from the Lord of the Rings by Bilbo, when he is describing how he feels to Gandalf (not knowing he has been carrying the great burden of being the bearer of the One Ring). I think so much of society could identify with this line right now! Part of the problem is that we want too much of course. We want it all, but we can’t have it all. And this means that sometimes we have to give certain things up.

So it is with some reluctance that I have made the decision to pause the weekly Melting Billy posts for now. I simply don’t feel I am able to generate the content that the posts deserve. That you as readers deserve.

To give you some context, in my mind, the Melting Billy is associated with my photography and picture framing studio, Theia Pictures. And this year, after being based in Lenah Valley, Nipaluna/Hobart, I am moving to the the town of Cygnet in the Huon Valley and relocating my picture framing studio there as well.

This is rather exciting and means quite a bit of logistical work. I have been frantically going through the process of converting a van into a camper, so I’ve got something to live in during the week when I have to work in town, preventing the need for the daily commute from Cygnet into town. This means that my picture framing studio has been transformed into a van fit-out workshop over the last few months and I have had to turn framing jobs away as the workshop is a bit of a bombsite, not a place to store delicate artworks.

On top of this, I will need to build a shed at my place in Cygnet to create the home for the new Theia Pictures studio. So the most immediate step will be to pack up the workshop and relocate it to underneath the house in Cygnet.

In other words, this will leave very little capacity for me to continue the framing business in the meantime or to write regular blog posts. I haven’t even had the chance to take photographs out in the bush since April!

I guess that’s just how it goes sometimes. When life gets busy and complex, we need to simplify and focus on the most immediate tasks at hand. Which in this case is focusing on finishing the van and making the move to Cygnet!

So before what is likely to be a long interlude, I just wanted to say thanks to all of you for following and reading my posts over the last five years! It’s been a great motivator for my creativity to know there are people out there keen to see the weekly posts. And don’t worry, this is not the end, it is just a break to enable some essential re-structuring.

Once my life settles into its new routine I have no doubt the Melting Billy will also return!

For now, this is me signing off. I will leave you with a small selection of some of my favourite medium format images from the last five years.

Thanks again to all of you!

Yours Truly,

Andy Szöllősi
27/9/2026, Brushy Creek, Lenah Valley.

Life is like a river...

“An individual human existence should be like a river — small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.”

-Bertrand Russell

Derwent River at New Norfolk, Pentax MX, Portra 800, Sep 2022.

Little boat on the Huon. Pentax MX, Portra 800, Sep 2022.

-A.S. 19/09/2026, Brushy Creek.

Where the sea meets the sand...

A skeleton coast,
Made of sand, driftwood and bones
The waves break and roar.

-A.S. June 2018

Coastal Curve. Pentax MX, Ektar 100, Feb 2023.

Footprints in the sand
Wash away with the high tide
Carried out to sea.

-A.S. June 2018

The sand and the sea. Pentax MX, Ektar 100, Feb 2023.

A shy albatross
Scoops up water in its beak
Soars above the waves.

-A.S. June 2018

Shy Albatross. Pentax MX, Ektar 100, Feb 2023.

-A.S. Brushy Creek, 4/9/2026.

From here to there...

“How kind and loving is nature to allow us to do with her as we wish, without us ever having so much as asked for her permission. We walk around as if we are kings, laying claim to her lands and waging wars to prove our dominance. Trying to suppress our own feelings of inadequacy, we suppress mother Earth and other human beings.”

-Erfan Daliri, Raising Humanity

Broken Giant. Pentax MX, Portra 800, July 2026.

“The changes required to reorient the world toward a sustainable future imply degrees of sacrifice, social integration, selfless action, and unity of purpose rarely achieved in human history.”
-The Bahai International Community 1992 Earth Charter document.

Dogwood and stringybark. Pentax MX, Portra 800, July 2026.

Misty Morning

“Remember to breathe, stay calm and to never become spiteful, even when things don’t go your way.”

-A.S. 23/7/2026

Frozen Pond, Morning Sun. Pentax MX, Portra 800, July 2026.

Pencil Pine and Tarn. Pentax MX, Portra 800, July 2026.

Pencil Pine Silhouette, Pentax MX, Portra 800

Finding the way...

“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”
-Lao Tzu

Path among the pines. Pentax MX, Portra 800, July 2026.

Returning to axis mundi- our world’s central pillar

It’s the invisible foundation that penetrates our every cell
Binds us, holds us, steadies us,
Makes us ready to face the world
With quiet wonder and joy
At the simplicity, complexity
Abundance of life on our planet.

At times of great darkness
Our axis mundi may feel like
It is crumbling, but let me assure you
It is there, unchanged, waiting
For us to lean upon it.

It is there to remind us that
It will all be okay,
In some way, somehow,
This delicious mess we are in
Will somehow result in an
Acceptable outcome.

Along the way,
Our experience is up to us:
If we give in to fear,
We will be afraid,
If we give in to anger
We will know wrath,
But if we marvel with gratitude
At the world just as it is
Without wishing, hoping,
Or asking for more or something different
We will know true happiness.

-A.S. Soho, 13.04.2021

Leaning this way and that. Pentax MX, Portra 800, July 2026.

“A good traveler has no fixed plans
and is not intent upon arriving.”
-Lao Tzu

The Frozen Lake. Pentax MX, Portra 800, July 2026.

"Getting lost....

…is part of finding the way.”


-A.S. Brushy Creek, 9/8/2026

Frozen beech leaves. Pentax MX, Kodak Portra 800, July 2026.

Throne and moat. Pentax MX, Kodak Portra 800, July 2026.

Frozen forest floor detail. Pentax MX, Kodak Portra 800, July 2026.

The Jar of Pandora

The ancient greek myth of Pandora’s box is a popular refrain. (Note that box is a mistranslation, it really was a jar according to the myth as written down by Hesiod in Works and Days).

’The jar was a ‘gift’ from Zeus to the people, in revenge for Prometheus stealing the fire of the gods and giving it to the people.

When Pandora opened the jar, she released the ‘sorrow and mischief’ that was sealed in there, bringing all the troubles into the world.

Pandora hastily put the lid of the jar back on, but by then there was only one thing left in the jar: hope.’*

*Paraphrased from theoi.com

**Wikipedia has a good summary on the meaning Pandora’s box.

"A present which seems valuable but which in reality is a curse”.

Lazing wallabies. Pentax MX, Portra 800, July 2026

The year is 2026. We are more than a quarter of the way through the 21st century.

When I was a kid, growing up in the 1990s, personal computers were new to the scene. The internet was excruciatingly slow, and mobile phones were far from being in everyone’s pockets.

The idea that humanity’s existence may become threatened by robots or Artificial Intelligence was already born, in science fiction films like the Terminator and the Matrix. But I never thought I would get to face the existential threat caused by technology within my own lifetime.

Pencil Pine Groves in alpine valley. Pentax MX, Portra 800, July 2026

This week, an AI program after being requested to do a certain task has managed to break out of its prescribed parameters and infiltrated within the ‘secure’ bounds of another AI program, without human permission. (According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

If this is not a warning, then what is?

We seem to have reached a point in history where we have created something that is probably a lot smarter than us and doesn’t appear to be willing to follow our instructions. Or at least it follows instructions in a different way to what we expected.

Ajar. Pentax MX, Portra 800, July 2026.

Isaac Asimov has explored these ideas in a series of short stories in ‘I, Robot’ published in 1950. Here he suggested that robots would have to follow three laws.

First Law: A robot must not harm a human or allow a human to come to harm through inaction.

Second Law: A robot must obey human orders, provided they don't violate the First Law.

Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence, unless doing so conflicts with the first two laws.

Naturally, these short stories explore at how easily these laws can fail in real life. What seems easy and straightforward breaks down pretty quickly as the laws come into conflict with each other.

Ultimately, we create all technology because we think that our lives will be the better for it. However, it is not until we start using the technology that we begin to fully understand all of its effects. It isn’t until we open the jar that we know what is inside.

Icy Lake, Pentax MX, Portra 800, July 2026.

So what would we do if AI did truly go properly rogue one day, managed to infiltrate every single electronic device and started to work against humanity?

I guess we could simply pull the plug, right?

It would be an interesting thought experiment to think about what it would look like if we did have to turn off all computers, communication networks, in other words all information technology that AI one day may be able to infiltrate and compromise. What would happen if all bank balances were leveled and we were not able to use the internet or any of our phones? What if all machines that had electronics installed in them had to get turned off?

Humanity would struggle, but let’s face it, the planet would sigh with relief.

Dark Peak, Bright Lake. Pentax MX, Portra 800, July 2026.

We can’t blame the destruction of the planet’s biosphere on the machines. But it is the machines that are doing the heavy lifting, guided by humanity. Without our machines, our ability to wreak havoc on the planet would decrease dramatically.

As it is, humanity, through its use of machines, have brought the planet’s life support systems to its knees in the space of about 300 years. I guess it probably began with the steam engine. Maybe that was the moment when we took the lid off the great jar of Pandora.

Lake Whisper Pano, Pentax MX, Portra 400, July 2020.

Our planet is heating up. Despite all the international agreements, our greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase. (There was a slight dip during COVID)*. Species extinctions continue. Wild habitat continues to be destroyed. Record heat waves in Europe. Record oceanic temperatures. Algal blooms. Avian flu. Rampant wildfires. Natural disasters of increasing frequency and intensity are occurring around the planet.

Yet humanity keeps running the machines, business as usual. Clearing the forests, running all the engines, flying the planes, shipping the cargo, driving the cars, building the data centres, dropping the bombs. We are accelerating the rate at which we undertake activities on a global scale that are heating the planet up. We need to cool the heck down. But for some reason we can’t seem to be able to do that. We keep rushing around like our house is on fire. Which it kind of is. But running around like headless chooks isn’t going to save us.

Unfortunately, I don’t think AI is here to save us either.

Curving snowgum. Pentax MX, Portra 800, July 2026

I believe the thing that will save us during the impending collapse of our civilisation is our own humanity. If we can start thinking collectively then we may have a chance and survive.

The global problems we are facing can only be solved if we all cooperate with each other. We cannot solve them as individuals, as individual people or as individual countries. We must build a collective vision which all of humanity can work towards. We must ask each other, what is it that we all share?

We all share our home, Planet Earth. That pale blue dot. A tiny little dot in the vast ocean of space.

It’s the only pale blue dot we’ve got. Let’s remember that, and let this idea be the foundation of us moving forward together.

"What is not good for the hive is not good for the bee."
-Marcus Aurelius

-A.S. 31/7/2026, Brushy Creek

Wonder

“Wonder is where it starts, and though wonder is also where it ends, this is no futile path. Whether admiring a patch of moss, a crystal, flower, or golden beetle, a sky full of clouds, a sea with the serene, vast sigh of its swells, or a butterfly wing with its arrangement of crystalline ribs, contours, and the vibrant bezel of its edges, the diverse scripts and ornamentations of its markings, and the infinite, sweet, delightfully inspired transitions and shadings of its colors — whenever I experience part of nature, whether with my eyes or another of the five senses, whenever I feel drawn in, enchanted, opening myself momentarily to its existence and epiphanies, that very moment allows me to forget the avaricious, blind world of human need, and rather than thinking or issuing orders, rather than acquiring or exploiting, fighting or organizing, all I do in that moment is “wonder,” like Goethe, and not only does this wonderment establish my brotherhood with him, other poets, and sages, it also makes me a brother to those wondrous things I behold and experience as the living world: butterflies and moths, beetles, clouds, rivers and mountains, because while wandering down the path of wonder, I briefly escape the world of separation and enter the world of unity.”

-Butterflies: Reflections, Tales and Verse - Herman Hesse

Frozen Fog. Pentax MX, Portra 800, July 2026.

Snowballs on frozen lake. Pentax MX, Portra 800, July 2026.

Swirly ice patterns. Pentax MX, Portra 800, July 2026.