My wife Briana, my daughter McKinley and myself. Photo By: Matt Elwood
Sam Swartz
About Sam: Hello and welcome to my website! I have been taking pictures for over 15 years now, and I couldn’t love what I do more! I feel so fortunate to be able to make my living doing what I love as a photographer. Not only am I blessed to be able to provide a living as a photographer, but I also have a beautiful family. My wife and I have been married for over fifteen years with the best part being our daughter McKinley & son James. Married life is wonderful and when you add little ones to your family. It really makes you feel complete.
I have a great love for the outdoors which has led to a passionate pursuit of wildlife and nature photography. This means lots of road trips to Western Nebraska, National Parks, the mountains, and anywhere I think I might be able to create a beautiful image from God’s amazing canvas! I currently have visited 36 of America’s 60 National Parks and 6 of Canada’s 27 National Parks. Of course, anyone who has lived their entire life in Nebraska has to be a Husker fan, and I am no exception to that rule! My idea of a perfect evening is a night with a large camp fire while camping out under the stars in the middle of nowhere with my family!
Local– Although I have a great love of the mountains Nebraska has always been home. I was born in Omaha and raised in Lincoln which means Saturdays in the fall are spent cheering on our Huskers win or loose. I also hold a bachelors degree from Doane College.
Accolades- Masters degree, photog of the year, Serving on PPN board.
Artist Statement: As I travel and get to see all of these incredible locations, I hope that each and every image I create will help many people see and understand more of this amazing world that God has created. “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” Romans 1:20
Artist Convictions: I love nature photography and have strong convictions on how it should be created. My biggest conviction is in order to call yourself a wildlife photographer, the animals that you photograph and display as “wildlife” MUST be wild. This may seem like an obvious standard, but many people would be surprised to know that the amazing wildlife photo that they’ve seen were actually taken on a “game farm”. These farms have every wild animal you can think of that are kept caged up like a zoo animal then trained to pose exactly how the photographer desires. 
So much of the art of wildlife photography is becoming educated about the animals and dedicating enough time in the wild to be able to catch that one special moment. The only animals you will see on my site are of fully wild animals. My other great conviction in nature photography is capturing and displaying the photos just as my camera saw it at that very moment in time. This means I attempt to do as little work in the digital dark room as possible! All photos have always had some developing process, whether film or digital. But all of my photos are from ONE image only! No composite or HDR’s here. Once you start adding multiple photos together, you are creating digital art and not photography.
