90% of sharks have disappeared from our oceans in the last 100 years. There are 440 known species of sharks, many of which are harmless.

100 million sharks were killed last year. This year, I decided to make a difference by championing for their protection. This photoshoot was created to support the creation of a shark sanctuary in Malaysia.

More info: sharkshepherds.com | Sign the petition

Me and a small team of divers decided to create a surreal shark shepherd to help raise awareness for sharks

We asked Amber Bourke to model for us. She is a champion freediver capable of holding her breath for up to 5 minutes

For this photoshoot, she would average about one minute, to one and a half minutes before signalling for air

Getting the model into position was a challenging experience

At least 90% of the time was spent waiting for the sharks to get close to us

Sometimes, two would come swimming over to say hello

After the photoshoot, warming up the images was critical to get the magical look and feel

The shots are underexposed because it’s impossible to recover highlights if they aren’t particularly captured

But at the end of the day, I got a series of images that I think are truly magical

That shows that sharks are not the heartless killers as portrayed by Hollywood

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