CHRIS FALLOWS

Chris Fallows is a Wildlife Fine Art photographer with a renowned collection of Limited Edition art works that artistically celebrates the greatest icons of our Planet.

Using his art work as a conjugate, both visually and through meaningful narrative, his purpose is from the coal face to tell an incredibly important and authentic story pertaining to our Planet at a relevant time in its history.

Chris’s objective is to highlight the threats facing our planet, but also inspire individuals, corporates and the next generation to celebrate our planet’s iconic wildlife and adopt new ways to sustainably co-exist and protect biodiversity.

Check out more of Chris' breathtaking photography:

🌐 https://chrisfallows.com

📸 @chrisfallowsphotography

Images © Chris Fallows. Used with permission exclusively for this article. Not to be reproduced, archived, or redistributed.

How does the ocean inspire your art?

The ocean’s ever-changing mood inspires my work, particularly the extremes of these moods. I love to shoot in either very calm or very tempestuous conditions, especially the latter, that really allows you to bring powerful emotions into the look and feel of what I try to capture.

Do you have a personal or first experience with the ocean that shaped your art?

I was incredibly fortunate to have one of the planet’s most iconic species, the great white shark, engaged in spectacular hunting behavior as my primary subject for over thirty years. During this time, my wife Monique and I saw so many incredible things, but to see an adult great white shark flying ten feet clear of the ocean surely must rank as one of the most awe-inspiring sights in all of nature. When you see such a spectacular burst of flight, and it is coupled with artistic elements like clouds, a ruffled sea state, and dramatic shafts of light, it was hard not to be inspired to do such a sight justice.

Likewise, to see and be surrounded by a super pod of a hundred and fifty to two hundred humpback whales is simply an astonishing engagement of all your senses that makes you do your best to do justice to the sentience of the moment.

Tell us about a particular piece of your art that has been inspired by the ocean?

Whilst the power of a breaching great white is spectacular, I believe the true symbol of the sea is a whale’s tail being hoisted above it. As such, I tried for years to capture an image that took my work’s viewers on a journey into that moment of serenity when the huge ebony-colored fluke is lifted above the sea’s surface and water careens off the great foil. Leviathan is one of my works that I like to believe comes close to achieving this objective, as it has both a strong sense of artistry and emotion that takes the viewer into the water at eye level with the symbol of the sea.

Another of my favorite works is The Sword of Santiago, which essentially is a moment captured in time when nature simply performed in front of me in an artistic way.

Finally, a very meaningful work for me is The Final Act. This was the last ever significant breaching great white shark photograph taken at Seal Island, False Bay, and signaled the end of an era that had seen these sharks become a world-famous phenomenon. It was particularly poignant, as together with a friend we had discovered this behavior twenty-two years before — and in less than a quarter of a century, it was over. Archaic shark nets and catastrophic shark longlining had taken their toll.

In your opinion, why is it important to protect marine spaces?

There are so many reasons. I personally believe that every creature has as much reason to be on this planet as I do, but even if people do not have this emotional connection, the processes that take place in the ocean are fundamental to keeping all life on Earth going. So even if you do not have the depth to appreciate and respect another creature’s right to life, your very own well-being is ultimately dependent upon the complex processes that each creature is a part of.

As such, we need to protect habitat — and this we do by, amongst other things, creating Marine Protected Areas. By doing this, we keep intact ecosystems rather than single-species protection, and in so doing, secure the biological integrity and life-sustaining processes of an area.

What can art bring to the conversation in marine protection?

Art lets you imagine, it takes you into a moment and allows you to be inspired. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and for me, there is no greater artist than nature herself. Every morning, as a fine art photographer, I see a new canvas welcome the day and another unique one bid it farewell.

During the period between the orange, an endless suite of possibility is afforded to me to capture the mood, behavior, and ever-changing tapestry of life that crosses my lens path. It is through capturing these moments that we can transport those less fortunate — who may never see the ocean or its spectacular inhabitants — to be there with them. In so doing, we open the door for our artwork’s viewers to be inspired and ultimately become understanding ambassadors of the importance each creature plays and the need to conserve them.