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Abigail Lees

@abi__lees

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Producer/Director - Wildlife Docs
Planet Earth III - BBC
ASIA - NatGeo/Disney+ (out in 2027)
Seven Worlds, One Planet - BBC

POSTS STORIES REELS

This bird changed my life. If you watched #sevenworldsoneplanet Antarctica episode last night you know exactly why. I fell deeply in love with the grey-headed albatross of Bird Island when we filmed them on a 6 week shoot with @johnaitchison1 @e.ranney and @ollyjelley on the camera, and with amazing amazing support from the Bird Island Research Station, including very accommodating station leader @jctravelography and the super knowledgeable albatross field assistant @foxderren. This shoot was an emotionally and physically taxing one. They are so beautiful and, as you may have heard, they are in steep decline. The last few pictures of this post show just a few of the many empty nests unoccupied and now being lost/overgrown by tussock. There are not enough birds to occupy the nests. They are perfectly circular in shape. Makes me think of a ‘zero’ when viewed from above. So many zeros. So much of nothing. Getting caught in fishing nets from longline and trawler fisheries and now climate change are the reasons for their decline. by @abi__lees

For Planet Earth 3 Forests episode, we filmed vast non-native eucalyptus monoculture plantations.

I was chatting to cameraman @fabio.nascimento on a call about something else when he showed me some images of these crazy eucalyptus!

The plantations are immense! HUGE areas of the Atlantic rainforest were cleared to plant these green deserts. You can drive for hours and still not exit the plantation.

The imagery is so strikingly beautiful and haunting thanks to Fabio’s absolute perfectionism. Every evening he’d send me shots and then go back again if it wasn’t perfect.

We both felt very strongly about this and couldn’t stop looking at the mesmerising yet horrifying footage he was getting. We nicknamed it ‘beautiful destruction’.

The editors @buckingabout and @garlandsrobbie then brought the sequence to the next level.

I really wanted to show the stark difference between a real forest and these monocultures. The lines and lines of uniform eucalyptus. Fabio sped his drone up faster and faster and then Nigel cut to a shot of a beautiful primary forest. The contrast is amazing. And the soundscape to match.

Robbie then had a go of the cut and we introduced a 30 second shot (perhaps the longest shot of the series!?) of the eucalyptus trees swaying strangely in the breeze, looking so flimsy. We are sucked into the image and then the shot cuts to a harvester plucking the tree out of the ground.

I was obsessed with the final shots leading into chimps. It was so fitting that we had a tiny round forest patch completely surrounded by eucalyptus to cut with our shot of a little chimp hand grasping. Life tries to cling on in these small forest patches that remain…

Finally editor Rupert Troskie saw what Nigel and Robbie had done and went ‘fair play’. The mark of a great editor who doesn’t mess with what’s already good.

What an absolute dream it has been to direct and craft this sequence with Fabio, Nigel, Robbie and Rupert. Thanks for making our mad visions a reality.

It’s so important everyone knows we are losing our (real) forests. It’s been a peak moment of my career to deliver this story.

#planetearth3

Stills are screengrabs from the Forests episode by @abi__lees

Filming the Amazon burning for Planet Earth 3 Human episode was a big smack in the face. The apocalypse has arrived in Brazil.

Swipe for stills from the team and screengrabs from the Making Of to put chills down your spine.

A reminder to all that rainforests are called RAINforests because they are very wet. It is not natural for a rainforest to BURN. These animals don’t know what’s hit them until often it’s too late.

The Arc of Deforestation is an area surrounding the Amazon rainforest where human-made fires eat into the Amazon forest to make farmland for cattle and cattle feed. We went to the westernmost reaches of the arc, where there is a new frontier for illegal loggers. The Amazon rainforest is vast. It is incredibly difficult to police and punish the destruction. The true heroes are indigenous peoples creating their own patrol, and volunteer firefighter units responding where and when they can to forest fires. They train themselves in how to rescue animals caught in the fires. It is clear from our filming of them that they need much more support and equipment than what they have. Nevertheless they persist, and they are making a difference - if only a small patch of rainforest is saved by their valiant efforts.

Thanks to @sosamazonia for all of your support in helping us film this, including @borgeslhm of course. To @aliethgadelha and APA Lago do Amapa firefighters and APA Sao Francisco, the living legend Juliano and his team for working with us. Of course this wouldn’t have happened without you.

#planetearth3

First and second photograph by @rolf_steinmann
Later still of @rolf_steinmann and myself together with Rob Hawthorne on the far right in the aftermath by Fredi Devas
The men with their heads in their hands @fabio.nascimento and @borgeslhm
Rob Hawthorne filming the python

Crew was Flavio and Dulce from NeonRio, Bosco our amazing driver, Producer Fredi Devas, and cameramen @neilandersonhighland , @rolf_steinmann , @fabio.nascimento and Rob Hawthorne @mylittlemeadows by @abi__lees

Terrible things have happened this year but this is not a collection of any of those moments. These are the beautiful moments

(But can I just remind you all- and myself- that “nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so”)

It’s been nice going through my photos and picking these out

Starting from the beginning (April-ish to June ish)

Part 1 of who knows how many
To the tune of my dad’s favourite song ‘Girls just wanna have fun’ by Cyndi Lauper

Note * The thumb in the second picture is a pivotal part of the composition of the picture and not a mistake at all. That thumb is playing a key role in the overall balance of the shot.
** Also. That’s not my baby by @abi__lees

Alien or insect? 🌿

This is Cladonota apicalis, a treehopper I photographed in the Ecuadorian rainforest while working on BBC’s Planet Earth III.

That incredible shape isn’t just for show. The enlarged pronotum (the structure covering the thorax) may help these insects blend into their surroundings, although its exact function is still not fully understood.

The rainforest never ceases to amaze me. How can something this bizarre be real? by @abi__lees

“I’d like to propose a toast” 💍 to Mentalists in Utopia. A collection of photos that mostly other people took and thank Christ they did because it’s nice to look back on all of this and have a good smile about it. @shambalafest god love it

As always I’ve come back a better kinder weirder human by @abi__lees

A disordered mashup of moments from the last month of which I hold dear to my heart to the tune of an artist I used to listen to when I was 18.

The moments are always made special by the humans and animals I spent it with but sometimes it was just me and a bunch of trees …and lately a few thousand lady beetles. And whoever sat next to me on the park bench.

There’s quite a few special people who aren’t in these pictures too but are no less wonderful because of it. This is to my old, new, and in the middle friends (human or pooch or bee). To my garden, which is looking magnificently messy at the moment. And to my local park. And to the giant fuck off dragonfly that we call Arcadia! by @abi__lees

At Heathrow airport, the man at the check-in counter said ‘be careful in that place, strange things happen.’

An odd thing to say, as he put the last label on our 37th bag of luggage. For one, not many people have been there. How does he know?

I’ll be able to tell you more about that place in a couple of years.

There’s a lot to tell but also, pictures do a lot of talking.

It’s true what they say about magic being in the mountains.

2nd and 9th picture taken by @elliotgeorgejones by @abi__lees

Just over 7 years ago I first set foot on the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia.

The moment I took this picture- at a 2:30am sunrise, alongside my odd German companion yet uber talented wildlife cameraman Rolf Steinmann- will forever be etched in my memory. I felt absolute and pure joy AND wonder (how lucky can a girl be?!) as the sun rose on that beach. Just the two of us and one million king penguins and thousands of elephants seals (and maybe 30 fur seals, a few hundred giant petrels - let’s count them all) …a Glastonbury festival of animals bringing up the sun in a crescendo of pure noise.

Lack of sleep and the nitrous oxide gas emitted from the penguin colony had us in a state of absolute nirvana, hysteria, peace. Thanks nature for you are the OG AWEsome.

@rolf_steinmann
#southgeorgia
#bbcnaturalhistoryunit by @abi__lees

August! June and July, we had a blast. August! The fun continued!

Here we have some piccies of so many cheesy cheeky grins, and a smattering of smouldering looks from:

Four Tet at Finsbury Park, Shambala Festival and Forwards Festival (with Four Tet again!).

The music was absolutely brilliant across the board. And the silliness- particularly of Shambala- was very much needed.

I feel very lucky to have such wonderful friends who enjoy playing as much as I do. Hopefully when we are at a ripe old age we’ll still want to be dancing until the wee hours.

The piccies don’t show the half of us but you all know who you are…and many of you were there in spirit!

X

@forwardsbristol #shambala #shambalafestival @fourtetkieran by @abi__lees

As a wildlife filmmaker, I spend an inordinate amount of time observing human behaviour and comparing it to what our ancestors used to do, as well as the latest scientific findings related to the interconnectivity of all living and non-living things, the biodiversity crisis and climate change. And whether ALL THIS (ie modern life) is good for our mental wellbeing (‘our’ meaning the individual, the species and the world / nature).

My observations at Glastonbury Festival 2024 (my first ever!!) are as follows:
- we were meant to walk, dance, run, or zombie walk at least 30,000 steps at day. Be that on the savannah a million years ago tiring out our ungulate or other prey, or dancing until the early hours in HMS Sweet Charity.
- that women need more female urinals. Thanks Glasto for putting some up, but we need more. Ladies have squatted since the dawn of time (well, since we became two-legged walkers at least) so let us squat in the open-aired tulip thingies and give us more photo opportunities…to take a picture of our friend mid-squat with Arcadia (@arcadia ) in the background (see pic 9. Kiri is the most beautiful model of this behaviour).
- Adults need more chances to ‘play’, to discover things and have new experiences. It is this that keeps us kind, curious, open-minded and accepting. Merlin Sheldrake (aka the fungi man) did an excellent talk at the festival. His book Entangled Life challenges us to recognise we as a species, as a super-organism, as mega-cities, behave not so differently from mycelium, social insects, whole ecosystems. Understanding the Other (be that a different race to your own, someone from a different background, or a little ant or spider or moth or slime mould) breeds acceptance. It squashes fear and hatred. Play makes us nicer people.
- I like places that don’t have cars.
- Friends are extremely important.

The above findings are all statistically significant and have been peer-reviewed by party animals in sequinned hot pants.

#arcadia #femaleurinals #glastonbury #glastonburyfestival @glastofest @merlin.sheldrake #hmssweetcharity by @abi__lees

Happy 98th Birthday Sir David Attenborough!

You are the reason so many people care about nature. The reason so many kids pursue careers in science, media or conservation.

At the age of 6, I said to my mother that I wanted to make wildlife documentaries. When I was 13, I read Sir David’s autobiography ‘Life on Air’. His work inspired me to move across the world from Australia to Bristol, England to pursue my childhood dream to make wildlife films. I pinch myself on a regular basis that this is my day job, and I feel extremely lucky to have met him, and have worked alongside him on Seven Worlds, One Planet and Planet Earth III.

May you inspire many more generations to come. Happy Birthday Sir David.

In the pictures (L to R):
Scott Alexander (series producer), me, Caroline Cox (production executive), Julian Hector (then Head of the BBC Natural History Unit), Susan Attenborough, Sir David, and Jonny Keeling (current Head of the NHU)
Second photo includes Fredi Devas (producer) by @abi__lees