The transformative choices telling the stories of our planet

There’s something Chris Fallows wants you to know. There was a time when having one of his incredible images featured on the cover of a magazine represented everything he wanted for his career. In 2001, he found global fame for ‘Air Jaws’ – an extraordinary image of a flying great white shark in South Africa. It featured on over 500 magazine covers, front pages and billboards, but “by 2018,” he says sorrowfully, “they were gone. So, I took the first ever photo of these iconic sharks. Then, less than 20 years later I took the last. That, for me, was a painful and jolting wake up call.”

In a time when print media ruled, this kind of coverage afforded Chris, who is a Canon Ambassador, a precious opportunity to tell the shark’s story to entirely new audiences, while also sharing one of wider conservation at the same time. Nearly a quarter of a century on, however, things are markedly different. And that’s okay with Chris. “I still believe any form of publicity is great. But I would rather inspire ten people to donate to one of the many NGOs working with wildlife than have 100,000 likes from people who think my work is cool and then don't do anything about it.”

In the subsequent years, he has developed his practice as an artist, a storyteller and an activist. And while his fundamental process of deep, near-solitary immersion in nature remains the same, social media has given him a new clarity as to how he – and others like him – should best communicate with the world. In short, he assesses every opportunity with the eyes of a conservationist and activist first. “It's not just me and pretty pictures,” he says. “It's about sustainability and integrity of the ecosystems of our planet. We've literally seen environments transform in the space of ten, twenty, thirty years – some that had been intact for tens of thousands of years. The protection of those environments is so incredibly important, because they ultimately keep us alive.”

It's this passion which transmutes into a calm assessment of his ‘market’, for want of a better word. And why he welcomed the opportunity to exhibit in a space which one might not immediately associate with environmentalism. “As you get older, you realise that energy and time become ever scarcer. To make a difference you must reach the widest audience of people,” he explains. So, when he was approached by Dubai International to bring his fine art photography to the walls of one of the highest traffic areas of the airport, he viewed it thoughtfully and through the eyes of opportunity.

He learnt about their ambitious sustainability goals and participation in the United for Wildlife Transport Taskforce, which works to prevent the trafficking of endangered wildlife, and felt assured of the partnership. “Fifty metres of an airport of that scale is probably the best gallery in the world,” he says. “92 million people go through it, and by virtue of the fact that they're travelling, they are probably in a position to think of making a contribution towards a good cause.” Indeed, if less than 1% did so, the value would be transformative to his nominated charity, Zimbabwe’s My Trees foundation.

And ‘transformation’ is Chris’s ultimate goal. As an artist, he speaks of his compositions like a painter planning his canvas, seeking to turn the work of months – even years – into a moment that packs an emotional punch, turns heads and changes behaviours. “I spend years in the field, decades sometimes, getting my subjects to the point where they trust me intimately. I look at the symbolism of survival – the war between cracked earth and clouds that represent hope and an end to droughts. Wildlife exists in an incredibly beautiful artistic realm, and you are gifted a changing palette every day.”

In the Maasai, Chris witnessed the ability of the camera to transform in another, equally powerful way. His guide, a local man named Manja, has extraordinary expertise and knowledge and harboured a dream to open a school for the women and girls of the Maasai. He wanted to teach them about the natural world and pass on knowledge to follow in his footsteps as guides or in eco-tourism. They shared a love of photography, with Chris often lending Manja his camera (“he often took better photos than me as well,” he laughs). But there was no way that he could afford his own. So, with a few phone calls, Chris secured a second-hand model for him.

And so, he took photos, right? Well, yes, of course. But then he showed them to people. Manja took them into local communities, to people who had never seen beyond their villages. He showed them to the youngest children, the most infirm elders and everyone in between. He told the stories attached to each photograph and found an excited and inspired audience, eager to see and hear more of this new world and its opportunities. This story does not have an ending because today Manja has opened his school, and his camera is central to how he engages with students.

And this is what Chris wants you to know. That the choices we make have consequences. Manja chose to use his camera to preserve his view of the world but also to expand the worlds of others. Chris chooses to devote his life to the conservation of our most precious wildlife and resources that underpin all life on earth. But he also chooses how to tell that story – where and to who. “These animals are fighting to survive every single day, and this is something I have to do with my life now, while I'm alive. And I’ll let others make decisions for themselves,” he says. “But there's a great saying I love, in a world where the desire to always have more seemingly trumps and ignores a future of breathing fresh air and drinking clean water – ‘try counting your money while you hold your breath’.”