“My Africa” at the Tribeca Film Festival

Ami Vitale is thrilled to announce the release of her latest film, My Africa, which is a blue chip VR film on the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary, featuring voiceover by Oscar-winning actress Lupita N’yongo. Ami directed the film with Emmy Award-winning Passion Pictures, Vision 3, and Deep VR for Conservation International.

My Africa premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival as part of the 2018 Tribeca Immersive program to a fantastic reception, where it ran at the Tribeca Festival Hub in NYC from April 20-28.

The film made the Forbes Awesome list and the ABC News Best VR Round-Up from the festival.

My Africa made its online debut on April 30. Since then, it has been written up by Mashable, Earther, and others.

You can watch and share it here.

BigPicture Competition

Ami Vitale served as one of the judges for the 2018 BigPicture Competition. BigPicture encourages photographers from around the world to contribute their work to this competition that both celebrates and illustrates the rich diversity of life on Earth and inspire action to protect and conserve it through the power of imagery.

Chaired by award-winning conservation photographer Suzi Eszterhas, this competition welcomes high-quality nature, wildlife and conservation images and is open to all photographers around the world.

To view the full winner’s gallery, click here. The winning images will be exhibited at the California Academy of Sciences.

2018 World Press Photo: First Place, Nature Stories

I’m humbled and honored to named the first place winner in the 2018 World Press Photo awards for my National Geographic story “Warriors Who Once Feared Elephants Now Protect Them.” Thank you to all my friends at Reteti Elephant Sanctuary Community United for Elephants for trusting me to share your powerful story, to my editors Alexa Keefe and Sarah Leen for giving us the platform to share it and now to World Press Photo, for further casting the light on this important story of community and conservation.

I was awarded a World Press Photo, Second Place, Nature, stories, in 2017 for “Pandas Gone Wild.” In 2015, I received a Second Place, Singles, award in the World Press Photo Nature category for “Orphaned Rhino,” which is also from my body of work on Northern Kenya, like this year’s prize. This work is a long term examination of the change in the relationship between people and animals in the region.

In the photo above, keepers feed baby elephants at the Retiti Elephant Sanctuary in northern Kenya, the first sanctuary in Africa to hire indigenous women as keepers.

Please have a look all of the World Press Photo stories. Some will break your heart, others may make you laugh and hopefully inspire all of us to work harder to find solutions to our planet’s most pressing challenges.

You can also see my lecture at the World Press Photo Festival, where I shared the full arc of my photographic journey, including this story on the Retiti Elephant Sanctuary.

Dave Matthews Band Ecovillage

Ami Vitale’s photographs of the Retiti Elephant Sanctuary and the heartbreaking image of Sudan, the last male Northern White Rhino’s final moments are featured on 6 foot high cubes in the Dave Matthews Band Ecovillage. They will be on display there at the entrance to all 47 shows this summer, drawing attention to the importance of wildlife conservation.

Jackson Hole Science Media Awards: “My Africa”

My Africa, a blue-chip VR film Ami Vitale directed on the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary for Conservation International won top prize for VR/360 Storytelling in the Jackson Hole Science Media Awards.

From the infinitesimal to the infinite, science plays a profound role in virtually every aspect of our daily lives. There has never been a more dynamic time in scientific discovery and innovation and the need for communicating science to public audiences and policy-makers has never been more important!

Recognizing excellence and innovation in 22 Content, Program and Craft categories, the Jackson Hole Science Media Awards celebrate the world’s most effective science storytellers and stories. Award-winners will be showcased at special screening events hosted with partner organizations around the world.

See the full list of 2018 winners here.

BBC: A Life Devoted to Photography

The BBC published a feature on Ami Vitale’s life and work, “Ami Vitale: A Life Devoted to Photography.” It offers a behind the scenes look at other elements that go into having a successful career in photojournalism, including the need for photographers to often fund their own work in order to do justice to a long term story that extends beyond editorial budgets. The story also focuses on the connection between Ami’s environmental work and her earlier stories about people.

Ami explains: “As a photographer, the more I’m asked to document people and their issues, I realize I’m documenting nature, and the more I get asked to document nature, I realize I’m photographing people’s lives. It’s one and the same. In a world of seven billion people, we must see ourselves as part of the landscape. Our fate is linked to the fate of animals.”

Read the full feature here.

REI: Wild Ideas Worth Living

Ami Vitale was a recent guest on REI’s podcast, “Wild Ideas Worth Living.” Her wild idea? To use photography to help people from around the world understand each other and connect. To raise awareness about cultures, communities, animals, and the environment.

Ami is a world-class photographer who has traveled the world on assignment for publications like National Geographic and the Associated Press. She got her start in journalism working as a war correspondent, and now focuses on stories, videos, and photos about culture, wildlife and the environment. As a storyteller, she’s traveled to over 90 countries, lived in mud huts and war zones, contracted malaria, and even donned a panda suit.

To listen to the full podcast, visit here.

New York Times: A Beginner’s Guide to Backing Up Photos

Ami Vitale spoke to the New York Times about the importance of regular data backups and a digital asset management workflow in their story, “A Beginner’s Guide to Backing Up Photos.” She emphasizes the need for multiple backups, since hard drives can fail and cloud storage companies sometimes go under as well. Once you experience drive failure and loss of images, as Ami has in the past, you never want to make that mistake again!

For more information and advice on protecting your photos, read the full story here.

BBC’s The Conversation: Women Behind the Lens

Ami Vitale and fellow National Geographic photographer Christina Mittermeier were featured together on the BBC’s The Conversation, where they spoke about the vital role of female photojournalists and the power of photography to raise awareness of global issues. Both photographers shed light on their storytelling process, the sacrifices involved in a career in photojournalism, and the need for more diverse perspectives in the field.

To listen to the full conversation, visit here.