“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince
Mossy Path.Hasselblad 500CM, Portra 400, Apr 2026.
The rainforest sesequence in this post completes the last of the images from my recent trip to Tasmania’s/Lutruwita’s central highlands. I went there to photograph the golden turning of the fagus. (I found mostly green leaves and a bit of yellow. The fagus went a week late this year). But I walked through some incredible country, and took some photographs which I was happy with.
It was the first time I have shot with a lightmeter, courtesy of Geoff Murray who sold me his old Sekonic 408. It is a very accurate light meter (and also measures incident light, so good for studio photography). All but this shot on the three rolls of film I used on that trip were correctly exposed. (And there was at least one image (Bonzai Beech, featured in previous MB post) which I would have certainly overexposed had it not been for the lightmeter.) But I do wonder, what happened in this image?
The light reading for this scene I am pretty sure was correct, 1s/F22 for 400 grain film, and this is what I shot it at. I took at least four other rainforest shots that day in similar light, and this exposure was consistent with the others. But for some reason this photograph turned out at least five stops under exposed. The initial scan was basically black. I had to bring the shadows up to 95% just to get some detail. At one second the exposure wasn’t long enough to bring reciprocity failure.
Did my camera malfunction? (It would be the first time, I can’t believe it!) Or did the forest somehow not want to be photographed?
After all, the track in this image is just about forgotten, only used by climbers (and maybe some highliners) these days, trying their luck on arguably Tassie’s most dramatic dolerite mountain, the three headed monster. At the foot of that mountain grows this incredibly dense and beautiful and old rainforest. Which feature in this week’s posts.
Old Myrtle. Hasselblad 500CM, Portra 400, Apr 2026.
Grotto, River-God Creek. Hasselblad 500CM, Portra 400, Apr 2026.
This was a glorious little grotto, one of many along this creek. This little valley truly is one of the best examples of temperate rainforest in Lutruwita. Old king billies, pandanis, myrtles and fagus all live together, along with the mosses and fungi and darting pademelons.
If you liked this week’s post, please leaf back through the previous four week’s worth of Melting Billy posts. All the images from these five posts were shot on a solo five day bushwalking trip in April 2026.
All photographs posted in Melting Billy posts are available as prints, which I can mail in a tube around the world, or if you live locally I can get it printed and framed for you.
Also please note I still have a whole stack of Dombrovskis posters which was gifted to me by a friend that are in perfect condition (have not been exposed to UV so they haven’t turned blue!). These posters would like to get framed and hang on a wall.
-A.S.11.6.2026 Brushy Creek, Nipaluna/Hobart.