Captain Samuel White Sweet was an English sea captain who settled in Australia in 1864, and was involved in the early colonization of the Northern Territory. After the grounding of his ships Gulnare and Wallaroo, for both of which he was held culpable, he turned his interest in photography from a serious hobby and part-time occupation to a profession. Sweet was a pioneer of Australian landscape photography as an art form, and kept abreast of technical advances in the medium.