MAC Maker Profiles: Samer Ghani

The MAC Makers program is a group of creative and connected thought leaders who our Club annually to elevate our Members’ experience by curating programming and further connecting with our community. These forward-thinkers deserve an introduction:

Name: Samer Ghani (he/him)

Member since: 2023

Occupation: Photographer, producer, director

Resides in: Milwaukee, born in Milwaukee. Full-blooded Palestinian

Family: Mother, older brother, two older sisters, and partner Anna (they/them)

Hobbies: Hanging with his two cats Emery and Ren, playing video games

Claim to Fame: His face was on a bus in Milwaukee for a long time for a Vivent health ad. He was hired to photograph teens at a skate park and at the end of the shoot, they wanted a picture of him because he looked the part. They ended up choosing the picture of him for the ad.

He’s also known for photographing thousands of shows over four years and donating his work to musicians to help promote their art.

Drink of choice: Black tea with honey and milk

How he defines wellness: “Aligning the body, spirit and mind”

Samer’s mother and my father hail from the same city in Palestine. It took us a minute to get over the immensity of this coincidence once we figured it out since Rumullah is a city about the size of West Allis and is over 3,000 miles from Milwaukee.

This is part of the reason why I felt an immediate kinship with Samer. Also because he’s so generous, humble, and hardworking. Samer is most passionate about unifying arts and culture in Milwaukee – and animals. That’s why he’s devoted to a plant-based diet.

His mother emigrated to Milwaukee from Palestine in the ‘70s after she learned English by teaching it to others. His parents split up when he was young, so he really only knows a single-mother household. But with two older sisters, he says he was really raised by three women.  Samer’s mother opened and ran a bodega in Riverwest for many years, modeling an entrepreneurial spirit.

Samer’s first love was music. He was classically trained in violin and participated in the MPS National Orchestra, traveling throughout the country and beyond, to perform.

As a kid, he spent summers in Palestine and has been exposed to the disparities on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides.

His first taste of the art of storytelling was through video games, but it hit home on those summer visits.  “I fear that a lot of people wouldn’t know what’s happening in the Middle East if these photographers and journalists weren’t taking the risks that they do to tell the story of the Palestinian people.” This led to Samer’s passion for photography and turned it into what it is today, capturing the world as he sees it.

His brothers and sisters have all followed a more traditional path, immersing themselves with their native culture and religion. “The cultural expectation in my family was to become a doctor or lawyer, get a house, get married, and have kids,” he says. “Until they saw my face on a bus, my family was pretty aggressive about my career path and how I chose to do things.” Samer feels as a person of color and a first-generation immigrant, he has a little more to prove and has to knock a little harder for each opportunity. “It might not always be true, but it’s part of my wiring,” he admits. 

While spending time with musicians, Samer realized artists are small businesses themselves and while documenting their work, he was creating a powerful PR package. Simply by putting in the time, he has honed his skills so well as a small business marketing expert that he can provide a whole team’s worth of content by himself.  A few career highlights to date:

• Working one-on-one with Giannis Antetokounmpo
• His footage of the city, used by Biden administration for the 2020 campaign, has been recognized and cataloged by the Smithsonian
• His work is also on display  in Times Square as part of a VISIT Milwaukee ad
• He took the 20th-anniversary photo for the Milwaukee Art Museum

Although these are all impressive accomplishments for someone so young, he admits the pinnacle of his career would be to work for Disney documenting animals in the mountains of China.