Blue Eye Cod Fish Fingers with Pea Mash, Chips and House Ketchup from Bistrode

It’s been a while between food photo updates, so here’s a bit of a backlog of photos i’ve shot for Time Out Sydney recently.

This stuff makes up a large part of what i shoot for Time Out. I’d never photographed food or interiors before i started at the magazine, but it’s been almost three years now, so i’ve become more accustomed to it.

Baroque Bistro in The Rocks

Chinatown Night Market

Chinatown Night Market

Tokonoma - a cocktail topped with fairy floss

Tokonoma cut their own ice

Tokonoma, a bar in Surry Hills, has a nifty gimmick when it comes to the ice in some of their drinks. They keep a large block of ice behind the bar, and if you order one of their specialty shochu drinks, they’ll hack off a ball of ice to chill the drink.

Tokonomo - Shochu on ice

Eau de Vie - with a cocktail poured from a lady's leg shaker

Otto - Ravioli of finely sliced pickled beetroot with goat's curd, pistachio and horseradish

Chairman Mao

It’s not all fine diners that i photograph. There’s the odd casual suburban gem – like Chairman Mao in Kensington. It specialises in Hunanese cuisine with the dining room decked out in kitsch Mao paraphernalia.

Sashimi from Iiza in Newtown

Bloodwood

Bloodwood seems to have taken Newtown by storm. Ever since they opened the doors there’s been loads of buzz about the place.

Bloodwood

Bloodwood

Cafe Four Ate Five

I appreciate when places have cute little details, like a stepasaurus at Four Ate Five, or dumpling directions at Miss Chu.

Miss Chu

Miss Chu - always popular for lunch

Shady Pines Saloon

Shady Pines Saloon in Surry Hills has proven so popular that on the several occasions i’ve tried to go back since i photographed it, i’ve been met with an enormous queue of people waiting to get in.

Shady Pines Saloon

Speakeasy in Bondi

Speakeasy

Sydney seems to be enjoying a bar renaissance of late. There’s intimate, character filled new bars popping up all the time. It’s a welcome revolt from the scourge of large generic sports/suit bars that characterised Sydney’s drinking scene.

Corner House

Corner House

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Since Time Out Sydney started it’s been a goal to profile Sydney’s colourful identities, the characters that define the city, our folk heroes and villains. One we’ve always been fascinated by is the "Bondi Caveman", the apparently homeless man who lives on the cliff face of Bondi.

Anyone who’s ever made the walk from Bondi around to Coogee would’ve spotted his mess of tarpaulins off the edge of the footpath, right on the cliff face. To the casual observer he’d be easy to write off as a crazy, probably drunken, antisocial recluse, but it couldn’t be further from the truth.

When a writer and i ventured off the path and into his precarious waterfront home he couldn’t have been more charming or accommodating. Offering coffee and a seat he introduced himself as Jhyim Mhiyles, later explaining the odd spelling is due to a fondness for the letter Y in the middle of his name and a theory about it representing the trinity. He’s certainly an eccentric but he’s far from crazy.

We chatted for almost two hours about his life, sharing tales from his 8 years living on the cliff face and primarily transient life before that. He’s not a fan of the ‘homeless’ label, preferring to think of himself in the Australian tradition of the ‘Jolly Swagman’. He’s proud of the way he maintains the place, feeding all the local birds and making a point of being friendly to the curious gawkers who walk by.

Meeting people like Jhyim and being let into their lives for a brief moment to take some photographs is an incredible privilege.

The double page story, written by Stephanie Goldberg, is in the "Summer Holiday" issue of Time Out Sydney out now.

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