The first time Samantha Schwann swam with tiger sharks, she got one piece of advice from the expedition's dive master: "Keep your eyes on the shark."
On a boat full of people who seemed to already know each other, she turned to another diver following that brief briefing.
"I'm like, 'OK, that's point one. What's next?'" she says. "And he's like, 'No, no. There's only one point. Keep your eyes on it.'"
Schwann is an experienced diver and shark lover, but even her heart stopped a bit when a tiger shark swam up to her and nudged the camera.
The first time Samantha Schwann swam with a tiger shark, it made her heart stop. Now? No big deal.
"They like to test you a bit..." she says, cool and confident now. "But now I have dived with them so much they have little personalities."
Yes. She's talking about tiger sharks.
Schwann is an underwater photographer who has logged more than 7,000 dives with 14 shark species. She has gone as deep as 330 feet — it took her six tanks of mixed gas and seven minutes to go down and an hour-and-a-half to come back up. No cages involved. She was a dive instructor and had done 2,000 dives by the time she was 19.
Samantha Schwann has more than 7,000 dives behind her. This was when she was an instructor in 1997.
Originally from Vancouver Island, Canada, with childhood dreams of becoming a marine biologist, skydiving lured Schwann, 40, to Eloy in 2010. Two years ago, she moved to Oro Valley. The ocean is her first love, and yet the desert also captured her heart. She says she misses the ocean but would miss the desert, too, if she left.
Although Schwann has been diving since the age of 15, she's only been an underwater photographer for about two years. She originally planned to be a skydiving photographer. These days, she wants to showcase the beauty of the underwater world and create a bit of shark empathy. 🦈💕 Even if people don't love sharks, Schwann wants them to recognize the importance of sharks' role as a top predator in an ecosystem.
She's currently focusing on photographing oceanic Hope Spots — ecologically important habitats in the ocean that are already protected or in need of protection. Mission Blue, an organization started by oceanographer and marine biologist Sylvia Earle, developed the Hope Spots designation.
In July, Schwann dove at Cocos Island off the coast of Costa Rica, and in January she stopped at another Hope Spot, the Revillagigedo Archipelago, a chain of volcanic islands south of the Baja California peninsula in the Pacific Ocean. Both are UNESCO World Heritage sites. Schwann photographed both and has stories to tell.
"I'm choosing locations that are shark hot spots," she says, because humans kill far too many sharks. It's unsustainable, she adds.
Samantha Schwann is photographing sharks so that people will have a greater empathy for the predator.
Schwann funds her own adventures, juggling other work to make her under-the-sea expeditions possible. And when she gets back from a trip, she prepares her photographs for a public talk about the experience and the importance of the site. If you'd like to catch her live, here are two future opportunities:
• She'll be talking about the Revillagigedo Archipelago 6 p.m. Saturday June 23 at the Third Street Theater, 1202 N. Third Street, in Phoenix. Buy tickets for $10 here.
• She'll be talking about Cocos Island 11 a.m. Saturday, June 30 at the Joel D. Valdez Main Library, 101 N. Stone Ave. The talk is free.
In the meantime, we caught up with Schwann to hear a bit more about swimming with the fishes. Here's part of our conversation.
Editor's note: Portions of this interview have been edited for clarity.
Tell us where your love for diving began.
It was a school trip and we had choices of where we could go, different trips you could do. You could go kayaking or canoeing or whatever, and I think I was really late with my form, and diving was the only thing left. So I didn't really have too much choice, and I thought, "Oh well. Whatever." I knew absolutely nothing about it and I was still a kid (15). I still had fun, and then I took my advanced right after ... I think my parents were like, "Here's something for you to do." And the advanced classes are really where I fell in love with it.
What about it did you love?
My second dive, I was doing my advanced course, and on one of the deep dives — it's a deep dive in Canada — the surface of the water was so murky. ... And I remember being really nervous and then I dove below and you get beneath this layer of plankton, and the whole world opens up. And I could see far that way, and along this incredible wall, and I just fell in love with diving in that moment. ... Something about it hooked me. It's not only the marine life, but when you're down there, there is nothing else you can focus on. You're truly connected to the planet and the animals in there. And you get all these crazy experiences with marine life, and it's just incredible.
Samantha Schwann goes ice diving in Alberta, Canada.
OK, so what are a few of those crazy marine life experiences?
Most recently, I was diving in Socorro, Mexico, the Revillagigedo Archipelago, and in November it became North America's largest marine sanctuary ... It's a major stopping point for a lot of these large animals, so it gets giant schools of sharks — hammerheads, silvertips, Galapagos, which are big sharks — whales, dolphins and manta rays. ... So two amazing dives happened there. One, I have these giant video lights, and I was video-ing and this pod of dolphins comes up, and one dolphin found out that my lights threw off heat, so she was rubbing herself up against my lights, and it actually threw my neck out, because she was just loving it ...
And then the manta rays, there are these oceanic manta rays that have 20-to-24-foot wingspans, so they're huge, and the cool thing about them is they ... can recognize themselves, and it was the first time I had ever dived with one, and when they come up to you, their eyes see everything. They look right at you. And she was looking right into my camera lens.
Samantha Schwann photographs a manta ray in the waters around the Revillagigedo Archipelago.
Tell us about your first shark encounter.
I grew up in Vancouver Island, so that's where I saw my first shark. It was a blue shark. They're little guys. They're cute. Very fast ... Also the sixgill shark, and that was my first experience diving with big sharks. There's this place called Hornby Island up north from Vancouver, and the sixgills are pretty much a deep shark, so between 2,000 and 3,000 feet deep is where they normally stay. During the summer months in some areas around the world, they'll come up to 80 feet ... and Hornby Island is one of those locations where you can go dive with them. ...
Samantha Schwann has only been taking underwater photos for about two years.
Of course there are all of these techniques you can use to try and attract them, and one of them is banging on your tank with your knife. So I'm banging banging banging and looking down, and it's on this deep wall that plunges to 6,000 feet or something, and I'm not seeing anything. Maybe 10 minutes into the dive, I'm not seeing any sharks, and I look up just to check on my buddy, and out of the peripheral of my eye, I see this eye the size of a baseball, and there was a shark literally right there. It was crazy because they have these huge eyes. And you expect to hear the duuun dun, duuun dun (Jaws theme), but the silence was just deafening. She stayed here for a few seconds and then swam away with a swipe of her caudal fin, the tail, and she was gone, just like that. It was the most incredible thing. That was my first experience with big sharks, and that instigated the love.
When did photography become part of this?
About two years ago. So I've been diving for a long time and got into photography in 2010. I bought my first camera looking to become a skydiving photographer, and I just started shooting. I taught myself how to use it, and I just found out that I really loved it as a medium. My mom is an artist ... I started doing more and more landscape and got into a couple of shows and started exhibiting here and there and realized: I love diving. I love photography. The two have to go together. ... Cocos Island last year was my first expedition.
Do you still skydive?
I don't skydive anymore. I have 500 jumps. We got a women's state record, but everything now is in diving. I just decided I really had to pick between expensive hobbies ... When I ended up taking pictures of landscapes and stuff like that, I never really had a project that felt like it had substance, but with the Hope Spots, I knew that I just had to give it everything I had.
Samantha Schwann originally planned to become a skydiving photographer. But when she realized she loved photography and she loved diving, she knew she had to put the two together.
What do you hope to accomplish with your underwater photography?
My No. 1 goal is really to bring awareness to the Hope Spots and to any marine-protected area that we have and the beauty within it. In my work I want to have a blend between art and conservation, and that's what the goal is for me. It's not just straight-up journalistic photography. It's got to have that artistic aesthetic, too. And I think if I can change people's minds about sharks and get them to care about why we need them. Maybe they don't have to love them, but recognize that they have a place, then that's my goal.
Why do you love the ocean so much?
"It almost has this paradoxical thing to it that can be really powerful and take life away, but it also has this really gentle nurturing to it. And when I'm in the water it almost becomes a form of meditation. Maybe that sounds cheesy, but it really allows me to focus and ... be present in the moment and really connect with the planet in a way that I don't think any other environment does for me. I think there are some people who really feel that connection in the mountains or the forest or the sky, but for me, it's the ocean.
Name: Samantha Schwann
I'm on a mission to __________.
Show the benefits of marine sanctuaries. And a little secret goal of diving with every single species of shark.
What's your astrology sign? Does it fit you?
I'm right on the cusp of Virgo and Libra, so I just generally pick the horoscope I like better...
Describe yourself in three words...
Positive, adventurer, curious
And in five emojis.
Not really an emoji-er.
Your first-ever job?
I worked at a doughnut shop, a major chain in Canada called Tim Hortons. There's a little machine that fills the doughnuts with jelly, you place the doughnut on it, set the amount of filling desired on a level between 0 to 99 and press start. Typical donuts are a setting of 11. I wanted to see what the setting of 99 would be like ... long story short, a doughnut hole got propelled across the store with a streaming trail of red jelly, and I got fired.
How long have you lived in Tucson?
Two years. Absolutely love it here — the nature, the city, the people.
Who and/or what inspires you?
Dr. Sylvia Earle! She's a marine biologist, explorer, and scientist who has logged thousands of hours exploring the ocean in deep submersibles, which is the ultimate dream for me. She is an incredible lady!
The secret to coping with stress is ________________.
Don't internalize it, and have a healthy outlet
Your favorite Tucson spot?
I still have so much of the city left to explore...
What are your favorite three songs and why?
That's too hard to pick!
Your go-to order at your favorite Tucson restaurant?
Saffron Bistro for amazing Indian food. Malai Kofta, Mushroom Do Pyaza. So tasty. Now I'm going to be craving it tonight...
What's your favorite Tucson-only thing?
Sonoran dogs? I'm a vegetarian, but they made me an awesome veggie version!
You know you're a Tucsonan when _____________.
Not sure!
What constitutes your morning getting-ready routine and how long does it take?
I get up super early as the mornings are my most productive time. So I get up and drink coffee in my pajamas and work. If I have to be out the door, 20 mins tops.
Favorite app at the moment?
Well probably isn't that exciting, I don't use a lot of apps, but Instagram. I mainly follow other underwater photographers, I get inspired by their work, get location ideas, and it keeps me posted on marine life so I get an idea of conditions. For example, in Monterrey this week, there were two pods of orca socializing and a fin whale cruising through the kelp forests.
Give us a two-sentence pep talk.
Pick what makes you really happy. Work on that, every day.
What would you tell your teenage self?
Trust your instincts.
What's a quality you got from your mama?
Her compassion.
And one you hope to pass on to the next generation?
Probably the same.
The last great book you read?
"The Hidden Life of Trees." Absolutely riveting book on how trees "communicate" with each other, at a cellular level.
The last great movie you watched?
I LOVE the movies. I'll hit the theater anytime I need to solve a problem or come up with an idea. The last GREAT one I saw, was actually getting around to seeing "The Godfather." Such an amazing film.
People would be surprised to hear you're actually a(n) ___________ expert.
4th-degree black belt in Ninjutsu.
Is there something you've always wanted to learn, but haven't had the time?
Ikebana, which is the Japanese art of flower arrangement. It's incredibly beautiful, sculptural, and precise. I've taken a couple of classes, but I'd really love to study it seriously some day.
Anything you've always wondered about Tucson?
Have you always been this awesome?
Favorite ice cream flavor?
Haagen-Dazs Rocky Road. They got the marshmallow right.
Where can our readers follow you on social media?
Instagram: samanthaschwann Facebook: Samantha Schwann
Is there something you REALLY nerd out about?
Photography.
What's your spirit animal?
A Tiger. I had an imaginary Tiger friend when I was a kid. Very different than Hobbes, though.
Which fictional character (from TV, movies, books, etc.) just gets you?
Favorite character is definitely Deadpool. Love the humor.
What makes you feel the most confident?
When I'm in my element.
The best piece of advice you ever received?
“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.” - Benjamin Mee.
