Meet Samantha Schwann in Oro Valley

Today we’d like to introduce you to Samantha Schwann.

Samantha, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I purchased my first DSLR camera in 2010 looking to become a skydiving photographer to help pay for my jumps on the weekends, and over the course of the next year taught myself how to shoot using city and landscapes as subjects. I come from a family of artists, but my background had been in sculpture (metal, stone, and paper). Almost immediately knew I had found the creative medium I had been searching for in photography.

Although living in the desert, I have always been deeply connected to the ocean, as I grew up on the west coast of British Columbia, Canada. I earned my scuba certification at fifteen, and by the time I was nineteen, it was a full-blown obsession.

2016 was a pivotal year with the purchase of my first underwater housing for my camera, and although I deeply enjoy the beauty of landscapes I knew underwater photography was where my fire was, and as cheesy as it sounds, what I was destined to do. I had spent years wandering through various occupations prior to taking photographs – from stockbroker to working on film sets – with a dull voice always in the background telling me to keep searching; I wasn’t where I was supposed to be yet. Photography changed that.

In 2017, I came across the story of Hope Spots, which are ecologically unique areas of the ocean which are critical to the health of the planet. They may be large or small, but are important in some way – perhaps having a large population of at-risk animals, are significant nursing, breeding, or migration locations, or have a unique feature about them. There are currently over 80 Hope Spots worldwide, with more under nomination.

When I researched more, I knew these were the kinds of locations that I wanted to photograph and tell the story of, especially those which serve as an important sanctuary for a shark.

My work documenting underwater Hope Spots has been underway since, taking me to the Costa Rica Thermal Dome, Sea of Cortez, and Revillagigedo Archipelago Hope Spots. While I’m still very much at the beginning of this journey, I’m really pleased that the resulting images have won a few international awards, and been featured online by National Geographic. I’m excited to keep on working hard, I have a lot of areas that I want to improve on and so much yet to learn.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Well, no one really likes to hear this when they’re actually going through a struggle, but – smooth seas don’t make good sailors!

The big struggle for me was finding my voice as a photographer. There came a point when although I was happy with the progress I was making, I knew it was lacking substance. I was obtaining images that I liked, and felt I was finding my own style – but what was it that I was actually trying to achieve? What was the viewpoint? What was my “Why” in all of this, that would carry me through the hardships?

My “Why” had to be powerful enough to get me through enough rejection letters to wallpaper a room, working 24/7, zero social life, and putting everything I have into this at 41 years old. If I didn’t believe in what I was doing with every cell of my body, why would anyone else?

I have my why now, and I’ve found the harder I work, the luckier I get. I’m still getting rejection letters, but they’re coming from bigger exhibitions and higher end competitions now, and I’m learning from what gets in and what doesn’t. I’m still working constantly, but I remind myself how lucky I am to be able to pursue my passion like this, and the incredible support I’ve received from friends, family, colleagues, and mentors along the way. I still have a long way to go, but I’m more trusting in the process now.

I’ve learned that struggle is usually just fear in a different costume, but a strong “Why” acts as both sword and shield, and I think that’s true no matter what you are pursuing.

Please tell us more about what you do, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
Although I still shoot landscapes and abstracts occasionally, my main focus is underwater photography.

I’m really stoked to have been able to do a few local talks about ocean and shark conservation and have had such a great response. Phoenix Center For The Arts, The Center For Creative Photography in Tucson, the University of Arizona, KVOI Radio, REI, and the Arizona Daily Star have all been absolutely awesome in providing opportunities to connect with the community through speaking opportunities and media coverage. It’s been really wonderful to have such great turnout to events and fantastic audience engagement. Definitely one of my highlights at my last talk was having so many questions from the kids about diving with sharks, and how they wanted to become scuba divers themselves. Any time I get the opportunity to speak, I jump at it.

Most recently I’ve been doing some work using sound to attract sharks – Great White shark tour operators in Australia found that they were able to attract sharks using heavy metal music better than bait – specifically AC/DC – eliciting a more natural response on behalf of the sharks, and resulting in clearer photographs (less tuna chunks!). I’ve always been a curious person, so I became the first to try using music to attract the Great White’s cousin – the Mako, using the same techniques back in February 2019. No one had ever tried it before, so myself, a marine biologist, an experienced shark handler, and the boat captain went a few miles off the coast of Cabo San Lucas, and bounced sound off of the continental shelf to see if it would work. We ended up having a record day, but with surprising results from a more dominant species, the Blue Shark. While the Great Whites would come running for “You Shook Me All Night Long” and “Back In Black”, the Blue Sharks would literally be nuzzling the speaker for the one tune I threw on to give us all an auditory break – The Beastie Boy’s “So What’cha Want”. I’ve since tried music with a few other shark species, and have found their reactions vary from preferring Mariachi to Tina Turner. It’s not about the lyrics, rather than the electrical frequency that they like, but it’s still pretty funny to see the differences.

My main goal is to show a different side of sharks, as they are absolutely critical to a healthy ocean. Not everyone is going want to get in the water with them, but we are killing 100-300 million sharks per year due to overfishing, fear, and shark products, and we are quickly approaching the tipping point. The problem is that sharks are a keystone species, which means that their population is absolutely essential for the health of the ocean. Humans simply aren’t on the menu, and every encounter I’ve had with them diving has reflected that. I’ve felt that if I can even change one person’s perception about sharks, then perhaps I’ve been able to make just a drop of difference.

What do you know now that you wish you knew when you were just starting out?
Oh man…

I’ve found that the older I have gotten I’ve realized that every piece in my life has served a purpose, and even the really tough times have weirdly connected in some way to the current path. This is how it was supposed to be.

Perhaps the one thing, and this is very challenging to do, is to work with certainty. Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will. Someone gave me some really great advice a few years ago, a quote from Benjamin Mee, that has served me really well.

“You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”

So, perhaps that – have more courage. What do we have to lose – we’re all just meat sticks flying through space anyway.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.samanthaschwann.com
• Instagram: @samanthaschwann

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