Sam has worked as an artist-in-residence at a variety of places including Flinders Hospital, various Primary and High Schools, and Forestry SA. She has exhibited as a core artist at the Ballarat International Foto Biennale and Shimmer Photography Festival, and has shown work consistently for over 30 years. Her practice is generally conceptual, but sometimes works responsively to a sense of place. Sam enjoys exploring challenging techniques that push the boundaries of her understanding of the medium, such as bullet-time, lenticular imaging, infrared photography, time-lapse, and most recently the wet plate collodion process (Tintypes).

She has been shortlisted for prizes such as the Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year (2022), and the Heysen Landscape Prize (2022) and has had work on the cover of Art Almanc (2010).