Great White Shark - Breaching
Great White Shark - Breaching (Carcharodon carcharias). Seal Island, False Bay, South Africa. The images were all taken at Seal Island in False Bay, South Africa. It is the only place in the world where the sharks regularly breach out of the water to attack their prey. The morning starts off with the boat following seals hoping to see natural predation which is very difficult to photograph as you don't know where it will occur and most breaches last for less than one second so it is virtually impossible to shoot. Once it starts getting lighter the owner of the boat tows a decoy seal made of neoprene at the back of the boat and all of my images were taken using this method, you sit or lie at the back of the boat and wait for the shark to hit the decoy, this is harder than it sounds as the sea is often rough and you could tow for 20 minutes without getting a knock as they say in South Africa. If you take your camera from your face for one second you could miss it!! This is done 1 or 2 times only and then they stop it as they don't want the sharks to figure out that it is not a real seal. So you don't get too many chances to get pictures like this. The guy on the boat said it was the biggest shark he had seen breaching that year, he estimated 17-18ft long and the biggest ones approach a ton in weight
