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Behind The Lens: Swimming with Great Whites – Photos and text by Amos Nachoum, Big Animals Global Expeditions
In the early 1980s, my fascina- tion with great white sharks took me to South Australia, where I met Rodney Fox, a survivor whose near- fatal en- counter with
On the fourth day, we moved to undisturbed water to ob- serve natural behavior. Andre hid bait beneath a rock, and after nearly 40 minutes, a shark appeared. It circled, tested, then rose slowly toward the surface. Andre swam alongside
it, and I hovered below, framing the scene. As shark and diver ascended to- gether, I pressed the shutter. The resulting photograph captured grace, power, and trust – a shared as- cent toward the light. It remains one of the most meaningful images of my ca- reer, a story of patience, adaptation, and respect. I am deeply grateful to Rodney Fox and Andre Hartman, pioneers whose knowledge reshaped how the world sees great whites. A Word of Caution: Great white sharks are apex predators, perfectly adapted to their environment. Diving outside of a cage, as I did, requires years of experience and careful obser- vation. These animals command re-
a great white transformed fear into un- derstanding. For nearly a decade, I learned from him as we conducted cage dives around Neptune Reef. I saw firsthand how great whites behaved when bait was introduced – deliberate, focused, and disinterested in humans. These experiences shattered the “man- eater” myth. By the 1990s, shark activity shifted to South Africa, and so did my jour- ney. There I worked with Andre Hart- man in the shallow, predator-rich waters of Dyer Island’s Shark Alley. From a cage on the seafloor, I watched sharks adapt their hunting strategies, abandoning surface lunges for stealth-
As pictured on the cover this month: Andre Hartman following a great white shark, South Africa.
spect and caution, and any reckless attempt to interact with them can have fatal conse- quences. Nikonos III, 15mm lens, Kodachrome film. 1/250, f-8, ISO 64.
ier vertical attacks. Their intelligence fascinated me, but the cage limited my photography. On a later dive, I climbed onto the cage itself. Exposed but calm, I captured images of sharks surging upward toward the bait – powerful, but still not the shot I envisioned.
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