Charlie Hillhouse is an Australian-based artist working across film, photography and printed media. His practice employs non-traditional documentation to explore the everyday, often highlighting intimate moments of resistance to daily life. Hillhouse also established Romantic Press (Tokyo, 2014) and Small House Books (Brisbane, 2010), producing limited edition publications and print-driven projects of independent artists. Hillhouse’s work has been shown in Australia, Japan, Europe, and North America.
I noticed that more recently, at least on your Instagram, there’s a lot more photographs of the built environment, architecture and buildings. Is that something you gravitate towards now?
Yeah, well I guess…something that I’ve kind of always been interested in is how - within everything that we’ve created - the personality or the character that comes out through what we’ve kind of constructed in a city. And then various kinds of iterations of that, whether it’s through the personality of architecture over time, how things have been added, or the juxtaposition of things being next to each other…but also I guess how nature or unplanned things also impact those elements. I did a series about trees on the side of the road and they’re almost like portraits of the trees, but it’s also about the surrounding that they’re in and how they’ve grown kind of around the buildings or in spite of the buildings and the personality that they then have from the altered urban landscape.
I saw that Roadside Trees series. Would you say you’re interested in capturing or expressing the character of a place more so than its aesthetic?
Yeah, I think it’s more of an essence or a soul…an extra spirit thing that you’re trying to capture that is not only aesthetic…of course it is slightly aesthetic, but also how it presents itself is kind of the aesthetic…like a person with their fashion or the way they carry themselves is maybe a little bit similar to a building with a tree, the elements that come into the frame. It’s a little bit like that maybe. So there are aesthetic elements involved with it and you’re kind of drawn maybe to some kind of aesthetic character, but it’s not purely aesthetic either.
I really enjoyed the Roadside Trees series. I was just really amazed at how these trees, quite large trees as well, could survive in these really harsh environments, and I guess you were kind of talking about it then…that kind of tension between the built environment and nature. Is that something you observed before taking the photographs or something that came out in the process of taking them?
You know, nature is one of the elements. I guess it’s more about observing things that are around us all the time that you don’t necessarily think of. I guess there’s usually things that are hidden all around the place and kind of repetitive as well, or things that can be found in lots of places. Another series of photographs I was working on was like satellite dishes, which were also kind of a little bit similar, but it’s usually these repetitive things that appear all over place that then have that kind of personality or character or spirit. I guess natural elements are not the sole…I’m not solely looking for the intersection between built environment and natural elements. It’s also just how we live. How we build and how we live. And that’s just one of the elements in that. It usually starts with “that’s kind of intriguing” and then kind of seeing that thing play out again and again, and looking for those things that keep changing in their different iterations, and the “trees” (Roadside Trees) is kind of an example of that. So it’s like the history of a typology, which is a photographic tradition (photographing typologies), so it kind of comes from that. But it’s kind of like a loose version of that where the camera doesn’t have to be in exactly the same position each time, where you have to have the exact same framing. It’s kind of a loose version of that. But it’s like the game of finding those elements that keep appearing but are always different because of the factors that play out in each individual place or city or element (building, highway etc.).
Do you take photos often? I’m curious how you find these things. When you’re out and about do you have your camera with you and are snapping these things as you go?
I guess usually that might be the start of an idea, just seeing it. But once I more consciously decide to focus on something…it might have come along when I was just walking by and I photograph something or I was just driving by and stop and photograph something, then sometimes maybe from those collections of photographs I might then start to say, “oh yeah”, that kind of thing is interesting, and then I’ll actively go out and maybe make a day of it and photograph, or if I don’t have my camera or time to stop I’ll maybe make a note of where something is and I might go specifically to that place. But then once I’m there, I’ll kind of wander around. So yeah, it’s kind of a combination of both planned and unplanned. But I don’t only say “only if I’m going past there I’ll take one photograph” you know it’s not kind of an Eggleston kind of thing, “just one photograph and move on”. It’s definitely a mixture of both.
I saw that you had been to Japan maybe a few times or…
Yeah I used to live there.
Oh, you used to live there!
Yeah for a few years.
Wow. What was that experience like?
Well I guess some of the elements I’ve been talking about are kind of…you know I lived in Tokyo, so it’s kind of like the elements are super-exaggerated of what I’ve been talking about, of how everything plays out on top of each other. Space for example exaggerates the transformation of buildings, or the way that a tree will grow because it’s so much more competitive. So in that way it kind of exaggerates everything. So that’s why as a place to photograph, it makes it especially appealing.
I saw your Niijima Island series of photographs. I’m not too familiar with this idea of wabi sabi, but I sort of noticed wabi sabi in the photographs you were taking. Is that something you noticed on your travels in Japan? This kind of appreciation for the imperfect?
Well I guess that’s what I’m always trying to photograph. Usually it’s not necessarily a beautiful thing but it’s like showing the importance or the charm of those things. But yeah the idea of Niijima Gardens came from…you know it’s a really cold and windy and rocky island, but then the kind of gardens, the way the people made the gardens around that and the materials, because it’s semi-remote…so the materials are much more repurposed or were from what was around, so that was kind of interesting. I guess that’s the natural environment with the built environment in the background. But it’s not always about that. It’s kind of the character that’s built through those elements, of working with what they had.
I saw you were the DoP on We’ve All Got ‘Em. That was shot on Super 8 right?
Yeah.
Had you worked with film stock before?
Yeah I had previously. That was actually made at the end of shooting a feature film in its final, final stages of post-production. That was shot with the leftover black and white stock. The black and white stock was bought as there was maybe going to be a kind of tangent that was explored in the film that didn’t eventuate. So yeah, that film was made kind of out of that, with one of the characters who’s in the film, who’s also a surrealist painter. So yeah, that film was made kind of in collaboration with his dreams I suppose. Just in New Farm.
Oh really!?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I really liked the aesthetic of the film and seeing the film grain. So you’ve been working on other feature films and things like that as well?
Yeah.
What other projects have you been working on as a cinematographer?
Yeah, so there’s We’ve All Got ‘Em and then a feature called A Grand Mockery which is by the same directors, Adam C. Briggs and Sam Dixon. And then there’s another short last year as well, also on Super 8, called The Painter by Robert Vagg. So those were the projects last year, and then this year I’ve just been finishing up filming for an exhibition that’s coming up at the IMA, with another person, Sarah Poulgrain, who’s been making a houseboat in collaboration with lots of people. So one of the collaborations is my kind of filming work and I’ve been semi-documenting the kind of process of the houseboat being built, but it’s also kind of other musings on top of that.
I know Sarah actually. I haven’t seen them for a long time. I was actually thinking of interviewing them about their houseboat. So is cinematography your passion and what you would like to do as a career?
Yeah, I trained in photography. I studied at the Queensland College of Art (QCA) in Photography. So yeah, photography was always my background and something I always did…but yeah maybe in the past 5 years probably, I’ve kind of shifted more towards doing filming stuff more regularly than photography projects. But I still like to kind of work on both…but yeah the photography stuff is more under my own direction I guess? where cinematography stuff is usually with a team of people. I guess the similarities between the two things is kind of working with what you have in a sense. With photography, my interest is finding what’s already there and photographing it. With the filming work, which is more in collaboration with other people, it’s kind of under another person’s vision. It’s like finding what’s the right way of doing that and what you can bring to it, but still kind of honours their vision.
So you feel like you have more artistic freedom with your photography as an outlet, that you can explore ideas and what you want to explore? Whereas with cinematography you already have a vision and you kind of try to find things within that?
But they’re still kind of similar, you know. Even within photography…even though it’s a lot more open it’s still like trying to work with what you’ve got, in the world in front of you.
Do you find that photography has influenced your approach to cinematography and vice versa?
I don’t know how film productions work, but I guess I’ve always gravitated towards working on small things where there's a very small number of people. So maybe that’s the photography influence, which is more about a way to just get it done yourself and use what you have, as opposed to like the other side of film where it’s kind of like a big crew and everyone has very designated jobs. Most of the projects that I work on are very small, and maybe coming from photography kind of made that happen, as opposed to coming from a more traditional film background where you would kind of train within those kind of “big crews” and work up that way.
What was your education in photography like at QCA?
Yeah I really enjoyed studying there, and it’s quite sad that that photography degree doesn’t exist anymore…
No?
Yeah…because I guess having 3 years where you can kind of be specific within one field, I think is very beneficial I suppose…it’s kind of having a bit of this and a bit of that…and I think it was good to have the dedication and the knowledge and the skills and experimentation that you do over 3 years…it’s very beneficial. And the lecturers there at the time were really encouraging and super knowledgeable about the traditions of photography.
Were there any sort of technical things you were interested in? Maybe using certain lenses or using different film stock? I see it’s a very broad field, and you can really experiment with things. I’ve seen people make cameras out of soft drink cans for example…I don’t know if that interests you?
You know like…it kind of just depends on the project and the way that you go about doing it. Because recently, I’ve been doing those Super 8 projects and previously I would have always photographed on film, but recently I have a digital camera and yeah I don’t have any qualms with shooting digital as well, and it’s kind of nice to blend those two. It really just depends on the project I think and how you go about it. And what’s kind of interesting is, as you go along it can evolve, and that might be with the choices of lenses or how you kind of finish the project as well.
I saw in your book “Some Years” there was quite a diverse selection of photographs, and they seemed to come from many different places.
Yeah I guess…I guess the photographs from there were like a collection of places I had been. But they were also photographs that didn’t necessarily fit into projects or kind of bigger themes but still kind of existed by themselves as a collection.
There was one photo of a mattress up against a fence and a train going by in the background…I liked that photograph a lot!
The back of Toowong! So you don’t have to travel anywhere! Yeah I guess that’s about a spirit or essence, or you know, you can feel something extra.