Ami Vitale

As a seasoned travel photographer, Ami Vitale has lived in mud huts and war zones, contracted malaria, and even donned a panda suit. Fortunately, her interview with Keith Wilson was far more straightforward…

For the past 20 years, Ami Vitale has photographed conflict, cultures and environmental issues. Her photo stories are the culmination of multiple visits and painstaking research, as typified by her recent feature for national geographic, documenting the efforts of Chinese scientists to breed and release pandas back into the wild. Photographing the world in all its guises may sound glamorous, but it’s a lonely job, and photography didn’t come easily to the quiet girl growing up in florida...

Did you find photography or did photography find you?

I was a shy, awkward kid. My parents wanted to help me and thought that putting me in front of a camera would give me more courage. Well, it didn’t quite work out the way they’d planned, because I never got used to being in front of the camera. But I realised that being behind the camera is really where I get my courage. By putting attention on others, photography empowers me. Not only that, but by empowering myself, I also empower the people I photograph. It became very meaningful, and that’s how I got started. Photography has been my passport to meeting people, learning, and experiencing new cultures.

You have travelled to more than 90 countries. is there one you never tire of going back to?

I never tire of this. I don’t view travel photography as solely an adventure. Although I do get to witness extraordinary things, it’s not simply about jetting off to exotic places. The magic really begins when you stay in a place and give yourself enough time to gain an insight and understanding of it. It requires tremendous persistence and patience, but I would rather spend more time in one place than try to see it all. One way to get beyond surface images is to plan to visit one location several times, if you can. Right now I am spending a lot of time in Kenya.