Just taking some photos

Ewan Hillsdon was born in Hobart and spent his youth exploring the wilderness of Tasmania. After continuing that journey through New South Wales and Victoria, Hillsdon found a home in Melbourne. 

Taking influence from his surroundings, photo media and a combination of hobbies, cycling and photography, Hillsdon captures a sense of memory and place through different subject matter and genres. Roads Like These demonstrates a shift in Hillsdon’s photography to a focus on process based analogue film. Utilising a medium format camera and experience with 35mm film, his recent work gives him a new capacity to reproduce images in quality large scale while still retaining the charm of film.

 Hillsdon continues to build an oeuvre that explores multiple subject matter, techniques and location with inspiration from the likes of Peter Dombrovkis, Marcus Enno (Beardy McBeard), Brock Saddler and many others.

Gear:

Primary camera is a Mamiya RB67 Pro with either a 90mm or 65mm lens and a 67 or 645 back. The RB sysrem was released in 1970, the “RB” in the name meaning Rotating Back, allowing the entire film carrier to rotate through 90 degrees, switching form landscape to portrait mode. This one has just a basic ‘waist level’ viewfinder for that classic look down view when composing the frame.

Before the Mamiya came along there was (and still is) a Canon AE1 which usually carries a 28mm lens but in the kit there’s also a 50mm and an 85. The first film camera in the kit ws a Yashica TLR (Twin Lens Reflex) purchased by Ewan’s father back in the 70’s and is still amazing to use. Most recently the digital age has arrived and a Sony mirrorless A7iii oaired to Sigma 24-70 f2.8 glass