The Cover Shot - Wild #200

Skiing in Tasmania is something that seems (and is) incredibly elusive. Marginal weather windows leave little room for getting out there during favourable snow conditions. This was my first winter trip here. I’ve always been inspired by Shaun Mittwollen’s and Hamish Lockett’s images from their winter missions down here, and I was psyched to finally get a taste of the wild, fickle and unpredictable adventures that a Tassie winter brings.

The shady gullies of Cradle Mountain make it challenging as a photographer—dark foregrounds and subjects set against overexposed background elements and blown-out skies. While searching for a composition that allowed me to cleanly expose for just the skier and line, Shaun recommended I check out an angle he’d scoped previously. Precariously sitting above the line, right on the edge of the couloir, I held my camera out as far as I could, hoping to get an almost drone-like perspective.

I knew immediately this frame was the one. I opted for an ultra-wide 14mm lens to ensure I could fit the whole scene in, and leant into the distortion and warp in the converging gully lines. After a long day slogging along the plateau and then up and over Cradle Mountain, the payoff was revealed: three mates trading turns down a narrow, steep couloir in a place you’d not expect to find skiing at all.

You can see more of Daygin’s imagery, and read about his ski trip to Cradle Mountain, in the accompanying story ‘The Cradle of Experience’ starting on p90.

If you liked this piece, you should subscribe to the print mag. Only a fraction of the great stories we run in the mag make it to our website; if you want to read them, head to subscribe.wild.com.au