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Shmuel Joseph Schweig, an Israeli photographer, was born in 1905 in Austria.
In 1923 he immigrated to the Land of Israel. From 1925-1927 he worked as a photographer for the JNF. In 1927 he established a workshop in Haneviim Street in Jerusalem and was the first local photographer to produce color photographs in the Land of Israel. He also served as the curator of the Photography Department in the Rockefeller Museum, Jerusalem.
Schweig's photographs helped shape the world's perception of the Zionist enterprise and he is equally renowned as Israel's first artistic photographer of landscape and archaeology. Some of the early photographs of the Great Isaiah scroll - one of the Dead Sea Scrolls- was taken by Schweig. However, he saw himself above all as an artistic photographer.
Shmuel Joseph Schweig died in Jerusalem in 1984.

Education

1921 Photography, Vienna and London
1930 London University, languages and Photography School, London

Awards And Prizes

1931 Honor Diploma (Second Place), The International Colonial Exibition, Paris, France
1934 Fellow, The Royal Society of Arts in the UK, United Kingdom
1975 Honorable Member, Israel Exploration Society
1976 Fellowship, The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britian, United Kingdom, for his contribution to archaeologic photography in the Middle East
1977 Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem Award, Jerusalem Municipality
1978 Enrique Kavlin Photography Prize, Israel Museum, Jerusalem