Time to Panic.

This was taken off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa.
The guy in the canoe is actually a researcher.
The photograph was published in a local newspaper

Thank you Avarice - I suppose he's actually looking for them sharks, hm?

Here Sharkey, Sharkey... Nice Little Sharkey. Obviously that guy has more balls than brains and he doesn't know what to use the balls for, tsk, tsk.

Hmmm... looks like a photoshop job to me. Maybe they're just jpeg artifacts, but there's some fishy (heh) stuff going on in the middle of the image, like some clone-brush activity.

It's scary, but certainly photoshopped. The artifacts are a dead give away, but the other thing is that this shark would be over 20 feet long. That's not an unheard of size for a great white - but this shark isn't a great white, it's in tropical waters and looks too dark. My taxonomy is rusty... but it could a lemon or bull blown up in reference to the kayak?

dunno about the photo, but in related orca-vs-kayak news, this is camcorder footage of definitely real orca-vs-kayak:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=n23_IsU4Uic

PS: it's spectacular, and well worth a jaw-dropped look

hellloooo look behind you, i cant tell if this picture is on purpose i guess he planned his sucide but seriosly i mean come on turn arond

wowee that is one big shark!! does any one no if the man in the canoe survived?

That is not photoshopped. More here.

http://snopes.com/photos/animals/sharkkayak.asp

Fake. Who is taking the picture...?

I guess it is real.....or, so they claim

http://www.whitesharktrust.org/pages/mediaarticle/media27.html

It's obviously fake but a very clever montage. If you look at it for a while. The symmetry between the canoe and the shark is uncanny; including the proportions of the canoe vs the shark, the angle of the paddle compared to the pectoral fins, the dorsal fin vs the mans head. The bubbles from the shark imply speed but the shark does not appear to be chasing the canoe, just following it. The canoeist seems aware of the shark from the angle of his head but he is also calm. The distances also make it a very powerful image as the canoe is much further from land than the shark is from the canoe, so you know the canoeist is on his own. Once you get over the initial shock, to me it's actually quite a peaceful image as the power is all with the shark (nature). Man is enchroaching on his realm and calmly being driven back to land.