TWO TIDES: CHRIS FALLOWS

South African Oceans, the Loss of the Great White, and the Return of the Humpback

On view June 19 through August 1, 2026 at Montague Contemporary, New York Opening reception: Friday, June 19, 6-8pm

NEW YORK — Montague Contemporary is pleased to present Chris Fallows: Two Tides, opening Friday, June 19, 2026 at the gallery's Chelsea space at 526 West 26th Street. The exhibition gathers a body of work by the internationally acclaimed South African photographer, naturalist, and conservationist Chris Fallows, documenting the waters off South Africa over more than three decades — and two species whose trajectories have come to mirror one another in inverse.

The Great White Shark, once synonymous with False Bay and the apex predator Fallows became internationally known for capturing mid-breach, has all but vanished from these coastlines. Between 2000 and 2015, research surveys identified roughly 1.64 shark sightings per hour in the area; by 2018, the species had effectively disappeared from False Bay. The forces behind their collapse — orca predation, longline fishing pressure, the unraveling of prey populations — remain contested, but the absence is not. Fallows, having first discovered and photographed the breaching phenomenon in 1996, also took the last photograph of it. The same lens that brought the Great White to the world bore witness to its departure.

The humpback whale offers the counter-story. Hunted to the edge of extinction in the twentieth century, humpbacks have returned to South African waters in numbers that astonish even those who have been watching closely. Fallows's recent work — breaching whales, mothers and calves moving along the Cape coast, the great seasonal migrations now reasserting themselves — bears witness to one of the most successful recoveries in modern conservation. Held together, these two threads form the conceptual spine of Two Tides: loss and return, absence and presence, the ocean as a place of grief and a place of cautious hope.

Few photographers have a claim to these waters like Fallows does. Self-taught and shaped by thousands of hours at sea, he is at once artist, naturalist, and scientist: co-author of ten peer-reviewed scientific papers on the breaching behavior of great white sharks, and holder of the largest database of predatory events ever compiled in False Bay. His 2001 image Air Jaws is widely regarded as the most recognized shark photograph ever taken, and one of the most iconic wildlife images of the past quarter century. What this exhibition makes plain is the sheer accumulation of time the work required: time on the water, time waiting, time looking.

The exhibition also carries with it a second purpose. Together with his wife and lifelong partner in the work, Monique Fallows, Chris has channeled the proceeds of his photography directly into the preservation of African wildlife corridors. The majority of his print sales proceeds funds the purchase of land in southern Africa for rehabilitation and rewilding. A 61-acre property acquired in Cape Infanta in 2017 has, with neighboring landowners, expanded to approximately 1,500 hectares under protection; a further 10,000-hectare acquisition in Namibia is now underway. Photography sales to date have raised close to one million dollars toward land acquisition, with a long-term vision of an unbroken corridor of close to two million hectares — one of Africa's largest privately owned wildlife reserves. The images on these walls are not only records of what has been and what may yet endure; they are themselves the instrument of that endurance.

About the Chris Fallows

Chris Fallows is a South African wildlife photographer, naturalist, and conservationist. He is a Canon Ambassador and a Call to Earth guest editor for CNN, in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. In 2025 he was awarded a prize at HIPA — the Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum International Photography Award, the world's richest photography competition. He has worked as photographer, host, or expert facilitator on more than sixty international wildlife documentaries for the BBC, Discovery Channel, and National Geographic, including Planet Earth, Life, Africa, and Shark, and was the primary host of the Air Jaws franchise on Shark Week from 2001 to 2021, seen annually by more than 30 million viewers in the US alone — a franchise that included the Emmy-nominated Ultimate Air Jaws. His 2008 book Great White and the Majesty of Sharks has sold over 25,000 copies worldwide. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Saatchi Gallery in London.