Inside the stunning world of bird photographer Leila Jeffreys | My Garden Path | Gardening Australia

Her fascination with birds started about 15 years ago with a desire to take portrait photos of birds, capturing their characters on film. These were displayed at human scale.

She started with budgerigars then went on to photograph every type of cockatoo in Australia, followed by birds of prey, before looking at whole flocks of birds and then couples.

Her video art often involves slow-motion close-ups of birds moving against a black background, highlighting their elegant flow of feathers and quirky movements.

Her work has featured in many exhibitions in Australia and overseas.

Born in Papua New Guinea, she describes her childhood as ‘free range’, being encouraged to play outside in the bush. Family holidays were spent exploring the bush in a Kombi, and her father would always pull over if he saw injured wildlife by the side of the road. She says she became “animal obsessed”.

However, when she studied photography at university, she says she was terrible at it: “I didn’t like photographing people at all.”

Living in the city, she became a backyard birdwatcher, and she noticed how backyard planting benefitted some larger birds while smaller birds struggled, which got her involved in replanting more bushes and shrubs in her own garden.

To photograph her portraits, she says she reduced her studio “down to bird size”, making a Perspex room with a perch and sitting quietly with her camera. The birds she photographs are from wildlife rescue centres, so have become accustomed to having humans around.

She aims to get people to connect with nature via her art.

Filmed on Dharug Country in Orchard Hills, NSW
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[antonenero]

God 😮 this is so beautiful and magical ❤❤❤ 🇵🇭🇵🇭..

[Skobeloff...]

Birds are stunning in nature, but not in captivity.