At first glance, Kristian Schmidt and Shawn Heinrichs’ photos of models swimming with whale sharks off the coast of the Philippines appear heavily Photoshopped. But while the levels and colors have been manipulated and the backgrounds tweaked, the most striking part – the models’ proximity to sharks – is real.
While a bit whimsical, the photos have recently gone viral and lead to a new awareness of the whale shark, which was Schmidt and Heinrichs’ plan all along.
“I’ve been doing underwater filming and photography work since the late 90s and one of the things I’ve come to realize is that there are niche communities of people who are interested in the ocean,” says Heinrichs. “It’s a very small subset of the global population. The whole concept of this shoot was to really break out of that box.”
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, whale sharks are listed as a vulnerable species, which means they are “considered to be facing a high risk of extinction in the wild.” They’ve been over-fished and are often killed for their fins.
Heinrichs says the populations that congregate where he and Schmidt did their shoot, near the village of Oslob, were poached regularly until fisherman discovered they make an enticing, and approachable, tourist attraction.
Whale sharks—the world’s largest fish—are known to be friendly and whale shark ecotourism programs have sprung up around the world. The difference between many of those programs and the one in Oslob, however, was that the fisherman were hand feeding the sharks, which means they were regularly coming into contact with humans and had become accustomed to interacting. Other programs often try to keep the tourists a certain distance from the fish.
This familiarity allowed the models in the photos to get extremely close. Shooting conditions underwater were anything but ideal—strong currents dragged the models out of position, cloudy days only allowed for a couple minutes of sun at a time—so docile sharks were a bonus.
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Wired
Subject: Stunning Whale Shark Photos Aim to Help At-Risk Species 
Sat Jan 26, 2013 9:46 am
