Shark cage diving started in South Africa in 1991 in Gansbaai at Dyer Island. For 4 years we worked at Dyer Island in what was at the time an unspoilt setting. With the advent of large scale shark cage diving came a very different atmosphere and so we chose to move to Seal Island in 1995.

For Monique & I Seal Island is unquestionably the best spot on earth to be able to photograph and view all aspects of white shark behaviour and it has been our privilege to have been able to work here since 1995.

Sharks pictures always create interest and none more so than great white shark pictures. Pictures of great white sharks usually show these magnificent animals

The Flying Great white sharks of Seal Island are now legendary and have been the subject of over 35 documentaries since we started working with them in 1995.

The most famous of these must be Air Jaws 1 & 2 although they have been on BBC, National Geographic and many other channels. Nowhere else on earth can such spectacular hunting behaviour be seen and on some days over 40 natural predatory events have been witnessed.

Each year from May onwards the white shark return to seal island to feed on young Cape fur seals which now head offshore on their own to fend for themselves.

The area around seal island has steep drop offs and it is in this area that the white shark patrol stalking the young seals as they leave the safety of the island and shallow areas. With a rapid surface rush these sharks ambush the seals on the surface and in about 48% of all interactions the sharks are successful.

The fastest shark in the sea is also one of our favourites.

Pictures of Mako sharks people have caught, do not do this animal justice. In its live state, which is the way it should be seen, it has a beautiful cobalt blue dorsal surface which rapidly transforms into silvery white flanks making for a very handsome creature indeed.

Growing to 4.45m (14ft) this is truly the king of the open ocean.

Mako’s typically occur in temperate water with a surface temperature warmer than 15°C although we believe they may well be comfortable in water cooler than this if need be. Females need to be around 2,7m long before they are sexually mature.

The blue shark is commonly encountered on our pelagic trips and may be seen together with the mako shark. Blue sharks are truly nomads of the open ocean and can be seen in virtually all the oceans of the world often traveling thousands of kilometers in search of favourable areas to feed and mate.

Fishing for sharks annually accounts for over 100 million sharks and blue shark mortality makes up about 40 million of this figure.

Most blue sharks are killed for shark fin soup and most of these sharks are brutally finned alive and then thrown back into the sea.

Blue sharks can grow up to 3.8 m in length and shark dissection has shown they can give birth to 135 young.

In South Africa Bull sharks are known as Zambezi sharks. This is due to the fact that they can swim huge distances up freshwater rivers and the most well known case of this is in the Zambezi River in Southern Africa. Bull sharks can grow to over 3,0m in length and are very powerful sharks with large serrated teeth and a very muscular shark jaw. Bull shark upper teeth actually look fairly similar to white shark teeth and have the same cutting action.

What one-ton fish armed with rows of dagger-like teeth can lunge ten feet from the ocean to snatch its prey? None other than the great white shark, a super-predator that has honed its killing skills over hundreds of millions of years. Husband-and-wife photography team Chris and Monique Fallows share their pictures, experiences, and insights collected over a lifetime of observing sharks and other predators in Africa.

By Chris Fallows

Four hundred million years ago the first sharklike fish appeared in the ocean. Today that original predatory fish has evolved, fine-tuned into one of the world’s almost perfect hunters, the great white shark.

It was always a dream to be able to work with these super predators. So when in 1996 at a small shelving of rock  in False Bay, South Africa, a colleague and I discovered these sharks taking to the air in unbelievable bursts of athleticism, I knew I had found my calling.