Between his globetrotting expeditions for the likes of UNICEF and Netflix, photographer Simon Lister likes to uncover the best foodie spots and clifftop walks around Sydney’s bays and beaches. He’ll show you an unexpected side to his hometown.
Sydney with Simon Lister
Photographer and Founder
Food & Drink Tuga Pastries
‘Tuga Pastries is just down the road on Clovelly Road in Clovelly. And we queue up there for a lot of their famous bakery stuff. So we have these naughty chocolate croissants, which are really awesome.’
Shop 6/231 Clovelly Rd, Clovelly NSW 2031
Food & Drink Clodeli
‘We go probably to a cafe two or three times a week, if not more. We’ve got a couple of locals, which are awesome. We sit and have our morning coffee and breakfast at Clodeli.’
Shop 1/210 Clovelly Rd, Randwick NSW 2031
Food & Drink Hubert
‘Hubert, in the city, it’s probably one of our favourite places in Sydney. It’s a really unique French restaurant. It’s under this building where you go down a spiral staircase underground and find this amazing restaurant. They have live jazz two or three times a week. It’s just a really cool place.’
15 Bligh St, Sydney NSW 2000
Food & Drink Totti’s
‘I love Totti’s. There’s one in Bondi and one in the city, and we go to both of them.’
330A/330B George St, Sydney NSW 2000
Location Clovelly Cliff Walks
‘Go down to Clovelly and then run up the cliffs to Bondi and back. I love the cliffs and the ocean. Having that kind of place in the middle of the city is so magical. That’s probably one of my favourite things to do.’
Clovelly Rd, Clovelly NSW 2031
“I love Sydney… Being in this great environment and breathing in the ocean, running along the cliffs, having that kind of space to think, I just love it.”
On a can’t-miss experience if you’re passing through Sydney
My favourite thing to do in Sydney is the cliff walks from Bondi Beach to Coogee. It’s an amazing walk, fitness-wise, and you come across beautiful beaches along the way where you find many different cultures like the Bondi, Bronte Beach and Coogee Beach cultures. They’re all a bit different in their own way.
On the best places in Sydney for foodies
We have a few local favourite places in Sydney. A café called Clodeli on Clovelly Road, where we walk two or three mornings each week and have breakfast. It’s a short walk with the dog, and we sit out the front in the sun, having a coffee; that’s our favourite little café. For dinners, Hubert, in the city, is a great French restaurant.
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On your relationship with Sydney
I love Sydney. We have been fortunate enough to live in one of the best places in Sydney, the eastern suburbs, where I love the beaches and the coastline. Being in this great environment and breathing in the ocean, running along the cliffs, having that kind of space to think, I just love it. My family and I have been lucky to travel a lot and see different cities around the globe, but we have this calling back to Sydney because of what it offers as both a city and a lifestyle. Sydney is also close to New Zealand, where we travel several times a year.
On your move to Sydney
Around the age of 20, I was working in the radio industry in New Zealand, and was offered a job at a prominent recording studio in NZ. From there, I met my wife and moved to Auckland, where I worked as a freelancer. One day, a company in Sydney called me up and asked, ‘Do you want to come and work in Sydney?’ After living and working in Sydney for several years, I had the opportunity to open up my own sound studio called Nylon Studios, which has been open for seventeen years. We launched in Sydney and opened in New York ten years ago; we have a Melbourne office, also. In the last couple of months, we have merged with a very cool company in the USA, and have changed our business name to Squeak E. Clean Studios.
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On Netflix’s ‘Tales By Light’ and shooting in dangerous places
Tales By Light is a Netflix series with Canon Australia featuring photographers around the world. They invited me to share my story and work I’m doing for UNICEF about children around the world, along with Orlando Bloom, who is a UNICEF ambassador. We travelled to Bolivia to tell stories about child labour and met children working in the mines of Cerro Rico in Potosi, mining for silver and tin in a four-hundred-year-old mine. They estimate that ten million people have died in these mines we went to. Every day on our journey, there was a very emotional moment that you’d experience… These kids have to work because they have to put their own food on the table, so UNICEF set up makeshift schools so they can work in their jobs for a few hours but then go to school for a few hours. No matter what their situation, kids just want to learn — they want to be reading, they want an education, it’s their passion. I feel blessed that I’m being utilized for my skill to take photographs that can hopefully help bring these kids and their stories to the rest of the world.
On reverse culture shock
I remember returning home after a trip like this, completely culture-shocked. You see someone all stressed out at work like, ‘Where’s the tape? I need a courier!’ It’s a complete cultural shift from what you’ve been seeing in death or war or poverty. In our environment, everyday stresses can be nothing compared to what a lot of the rest of the world is dealing with.
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On travelling light
I think I’ve learned how to take the least with me as possible and still do everything I need to. Often, when you go overseas, you pack all this stuff and then use about a quarter of it. I have come across other photographers with massive zoom lenses and tripods on my travels, and it looks like hard work! For me, I want to enjoy the moment and immerse myself in it, because it’s with people and kids. You can’t go in with all this gear because it becomes all about the gear. It’s got to be about the moment and making people feel relaxed and natural, and not getting in the way of the image. So I literally shoot with the smallest camera I’ve got and one lens, and that’s it. No flash, no tripod. This means I always shoot using natural light, which is a challenge I love — to never have anything set up in my photographs. That’s also an important thing for UNICEF, which is that everything is real and nothing is set up. I also go into any moment showing my face, with my camera held down low — not with my camera over my eyes, because I want the kids to see my face and feel natural.
On travel preparation
On my bigger travel journeys, I prep myself for a full month beforehand. You need to be super fit physically and mentally because you can come across a lot of obstacles along the journey. Having a healthy diet, a lot of exercise like running, and spending time mentally visualizing what I want to achieve creatively from the trip… part of this is to never think negatively in the time leading up to the travel and to think positively about the outcomes. Like, if I think I’m going to come off a motorbike, I’ll probably come off, so I stay super positive mentally. Once I’m travelling, I go into a diet of literally tons of water and just really safe food like toast or boiled eggs. I don’t take any risks with food and basically eat dinner that is cooked in front of me on an open fire. In every country, I also have a local fixer or guide who will know the best places to go to, where to take you for photographs, where not to take you, how to speak the language, and I have that person with me the whole time. That way, I can achieve things like surfing on top of a train in Bangladesh by knowing what to do and what not to do, and also not get sick.
“With journeys like these, you can’t just wing it because each day you don’t know what situation you will be going into and filming these kids in. You’ve got to be ready for whatever is thrown at you.”
Next Stop: Sydney
Creators
Beau Nelson
Creative Director & Philanthropist
One of the most exciting figures in Australia’s art world, Beau lives and breathes Sydney’s culture. Her curated collection of music venues and exhibition spaces will surprise you.
Nash Edgerton
Director, Actor & Stuntman
The stuntman and film producer loves exploring Sydney on foot. He knows where. to leave the tourist trails and connect with the city in a unique way.
Collette Dinningan
Designer
The fashion legend has built a sanctuary in the Southern Highlands. From artisan food to enchanting English gardens – Colette will help you unwind on a trip from the city.
For more exceptional creators, visit www.exceptionalalien.com
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