After settling in Melbourne, his father worked as a builder's labourer and built a darkroom, where Esben learned photographic processing, composition and lighting.
His early work was mostly serious in nature, including a 1983 documentary about the Hilton Bombing in Sydney called With Prejudice.
He wrote and directed 27A (1974), In Search of Anna (1978) (with film stills and publicity shots by Carol Jerrems, who was then his girlfriend),[2] Deadly (1991), and Subterano (2003).
He directed Devil’s Hill (1988), the Tasmanian film in the Touch the Sun series of bicentennial telemovies.
Feature film roles included The Coca-Cola Kid, Wrong World (both 1985) and Young Einstein (1988).