Capturing the plight of the Great White

From capturing the flight of South Africa’s Great White Sharks to highlighting the plight of their steady decline, Chris Fallows is using his photography to bring conservation conversations to a wider audience.

In 1996 Chris Fallows was the first person to discover and photograph the now-famous breaching Great White Sharks of South Africa.

It was this discovery that bridged the gap between Chris being a wildlife naturalist to a dedicated photographer intent on capturing this never-before-seen behaviour in order to showcase and bring it to the world. After spending nearly three decades in the field Chris built up an incredible portfolio of iconic imagery and became world renowned authority on great white sharks.

In South Africa, great white sharks have been in decline at historical aggregation sites since 2013 according to a study co-authored by Chris Fallows. Between 2012 and 2019, the number of sharks killed from fishing increased from some 76 million a year to more than 80 million. At least 25 million were threatened species.

Today Chris Fallows is a partner of conservation organisation Wild Africa and his work is currently being shown in an exhibition at Dubai Airport. “Our oceans provide more than 50% of the air we breathe, absorb more than a quarter of our carbon emissions and feed more than a billion people,” says Guy Jennings, Southern Africa Director at Wild Africa.

“We need healthy oceans, something that isn’t possible without keystone marine species, like sharks. It’s as Sylvia Earle said – no blue, no green.”