One of my favourite photos that I’ve taken was this one, shot perhaps 15 years ago, back in the days when I was still shooting on film.

When I was thinking about places to shoot for this project, I thought again of Bondi. This time I came on a weekday morning. I was surprised at how busy the place was, full of people doing all kinds of physical activity.

I remember a tourist once saying that Sydneysiders must be the fittest people in the world. My reaction was to laugh, given that I live deep in the suburbs where people were more interested in going to cafes, and much of the physical activity was done indoors in gyms. Now that I’ve been to Bondi, I know what those tourists mean.

Here, everyone was bronze, trim and terrific, jogging their nine laps of the beach or saluting the sun yoga-style. It was definitely a different world to the suburbs I live in.