Smiggins Containers

the STORY

Smiggins Holes sits at 1,680 metres on Kosciuszko Road and is one of the four villages that make up Perisher Resort, the largest ski resort in the southern hemisphere, along with Perisher Valley, Blue Cow and Guthega.

Smiggins is often considered the “beginner” area of the resort, with most of its ski runs featuring wide routes, gentle to moderate slopes and a maximum of double blue difficulty, making Smiggins a great low-risk area to learn to ski. It’s the only village that still has a J-bar, a small one-person lift, and the only village with just one chairlift, a single quad in a central location.

Its location along Kosciuszko Road also makes it a great place to stay during the season, thanks to its quieter foot traffic and easy access to the rest of the resort, with a regular free shuttle bus to Perisher and ski routes to both Perisher and Blue Cow.

During summer, with no major mountain bike or hiking trails, the village becomes a ghost town. This is when a lot of the maintenance gets done across the resort, thanks to the better weather and non-existent traffic.

The day after my dawn walk to Mount Kosciuszko for sunrise, where I captured First Rays, I was looking for a afternoon that was a bit more… relaxing, to say the least.

When I’d arrived the day before, I noticed a lot of unattended construction equipment in the main Smiggins car park, so I decided to just roam around the car park for the afternoon.

This was one of my first trips with the Fujifilm X-Pro1, a fun camera I often used as a point-and-shoot. To challenge myself, I restricted myself to square crops, aiming to create geometric images of the equipment.

A collection of shipping containers nearby was my first stop. Long shadows and vibrant colours created a scene you wouldn’t expect in a national park photograph.

Smiggins Containers - Street Photography Print

Shipping containers at Smiggins Holes carpark, Kosciuzsko National Park