Great White Sharks Are Seen Leaping High Into The Air in Breathtaking Photographs

Our collective imaginations have long been aroused by great white sharks. This large predatory shark, which has teeth that are serrated and a vicious grin, rules the ocean. And for many years, Chris Fallows, a wildlife photographer, has made it his goal to celebrate their majesty through beautiful pictures. Great whites breaching, or leaping out of the water, is one of his favorite and most impressive subjects.

Despite growing up to 20 feet long and weighing up to 6,600 pounds, these great white sharks are surprisingly agile for their size. And a breach is one of the best ways to demonstrate their agility. They can actually swim up to 40 mph and launch their bodies up to 10 feet in the air as they quickly ascend to the surface. are able to capture swiftly moving prey by doing this. It’s a tremendous effort that consumes a lot of energy. Great white whales can breach, but it is extremely uncommon to see one.

Fallows, who has captured numerous shark breaches, became hooked after witnessing a great white fly into the air for the first time. Fallows witnessed his first shark breach almost 30 years ago while traveling in South Africa; this incident had never been recorded before.

He tells us, “I remember seeing this huge great white shark flying out of the water and hanging suspended in the air. It was simply unbelievable and unreal! Although my first photograph of the great white shark in flight was terrible and out of focus because I was trembling so much with excitement, it nevertheless elevated the world’s most infamous predator to a whole new level of cool.

Fallows was hooked after that and has been searching ever since for more great white breeches. He’s accumulated an impressive collection of images that over time bear witness to the great white shark’s prowess. And even though he has now seen many breaches, he never gets tired of coming up with fresh, original ways to capture them on camera.

The super athlete performs in a way that leaves you speechless. “Each one is so different from the next,” he acknowledges. “Some are just magical where against the sunrise water cascades off the shark-like shattered glass, others are powerful where mouth agape a super predator breaches towards you, and then there are those that are simply beautiful.”

Fallows wishes to change the public’s perception of the frequently misunderstood great white shark through his work. He cites the sharp decline in the great white population in South Africa as one example of the need for greater protection for these sea giants.

Tragically, due to egregious mismanagement of South Africa’s marine resources, including the use of shark nets, overfishing of smaller sharks that great whites heavily prey upon, poaching, and bycatch, as well as more recently increased pressure from orcas in the region, the number of great whites has plummeted to the point where, by 2018, they had vanished from two of the three former hotspots, according to Fallows.

“We lost what was arguably the most spectacular behavior ever displayed by a creature that had been around for more than 50 million years in just 22 years. My pictures should honor this past, serve as a warning about what will happen if we ignore the larger ecosystem, and encourage people to appreciate the great white and other predators as magnificent and significant elements of our planet’s rich biodiversity.

Chris Fallows, a wildlife photographer, frequently captured a rare behavior of great white sharks.