[imagesource: Chris Fallows Photography / Facebook]

One of my favourite parts of watching those epic David Attenborough nature series comes at the end of each episode, when you see the lengths the crew went to in order to capture the incredible footage that sets these documentaries apart from the rest.

30 seconds of footage, after months spent hiding out in a tiny tent in sub-zero conditions, for example – the sacrifice is real.

In the case of renowned South African photographer Chris Fallows, his struggle involved countless hours spent in search of the perfect great white shark breaching picture, and now his hard work is once again receiving international acclaim.

You’re looking at the image up top, in case that penny hadn’t yet dropped.

SA People reports that “a video of the taking-of-the-photo has gone viral since it was broadcast by the Discovery Channel on Sunday, astounding viewers around the world”.

The video was aired during Air Jaws: Ultimate Breach, which was shown as part of Discovery’s Shark Week coverage, and the coverage added that the 15-foot breach was a new series record.

Here’s the footage in question:

You’ll have seen Fallows talking about how stoked he was with the photo towards the end of that video, but on Facebook, he went into greater detail about just how hard he worked to get the shot.

Find the full account here, but here’s some of what he said:

Back in 2008, I took a wide angle image of a great white breaching at Seal Island in False Bay titled the “Essence of Seal Island” which to this day is one of my favorites…Yet, despite this success, I always felt I could do better. I wanted to look up to the shark from water level, never down.

Literally thousands of hours were spent lying on my belly, camera in hand waiting to try to recreate the shot. On occasion I came close but never surpassed what I had photographed before…

For days we towed the sled with agonizingly close moments where for sure I thought I had drowned my camera in the ever present chop…On the second last morning of a two week Discovery Channel Shark Week film shoot that was dominated by clear sunny skies, this particular morning dawned with an ominously moody sky…

How many times I must have internally begged a shark to jump on this morning, I couldn’t tell you. The stage was set.

After snapping the photo, Fallows said he pumped the air like Tiger Woods having sunk a 15-foot putt on the 18th green to win the Masters, which is a pretty fantastic reference if you’re familiar with golf.

Proving that the more you practice, the luckier you get, Fallows benefitted from a massive slice of good fortune:

I tremble, not knowing if I got the shot or not. My sled still bobs about, and the decoy surfaces still intact behind it. I look away to the captain asking him to help me retrieve the sled. In that fleeting moment of distraction, the shark jumps for a second time, another spectacular breach.

Aaargh, I missed it! The expletives rain down like an Indian monsoon, I didn’t press the #$$%#!! trigger!

…We pull the sled in. A lot could have gone wrong…With two left hands I shake trying to extricate my camera from its box. I begin to scroll through dozens of test shots……

Woooohoooo I got it !!! Wait, that’s the second beach.

I scroll further … WOOOOOOOHOOOO, I got the first breach as well!

An incredible stroke of blind luck had allowed me to get not only one, but two incredible moments as the camera’s trigger had jammed open.

After all of those hours bobbing in the surf, and a more than a decade-long pursuit of the perfect breach image, that blind luck is well deserved.

Fallows dubs the shot ‘The Pearl’, and is selling prints online here.

[source:sapeople&chrisfallows]