Tag: photography

National Geographic Museum of Exploration, June 16-18

Posted on by Sophie

I’m honored to be part of an upcoming event at the National Geographic Museum of Exploration in Washington, D.C., a new space dedicated to curiosity, discovery, and the power of storytelling to connect us more deeply to the natural world.

This opening moment for the museum feels especially meaningful, not just as a celebration of photography and exploration, but as an invitation to reflect on how we see, listen, and bear witness. It’s a space designed to bring together voices across conservation, science, journalism, and visual storytelling, and to spark conversations about our shared responsibility to the planet.

I’m looking forward to sharing stories from the field and engaging with a community that cares deeply about the intersection of people, wildlife, and place. For me, photography has always been about relationship—about slowing down, building trust, and allowing stories to emerge with honesty and respect. Events like this remind me how powerful it is when those stories are experienced collectively, in dialogue with others who are also trying to make sense of the world through their work.

What stands out most is the intention behind spaces like this: to not only showcase images and expeditions, but to inspire questions, connection, and action. Being in conversation with other storytellers and explorers is a reminder that this work is never done in isolation—it’s shaped by community, exchange, and shared purpose.

I’m looking forward to the conversations that will unfold around what it means to explore responsibly, to document with care, and to keep our attention focused on the living world that connects us all.

Ami Vitale named ‘Women photographers working in wildlife and conservation you should follow.’

Posted on by Sophie

I’m honored to be featured in a recent article by Amateur Photographer highlighting women photographers working in wildlife and conservation. The feature celebrates photographers whose work is helping shape conversations around nature, conservation, and our relationship with the planet.

What makes this recognition especially meaningful is being included alongside so many extraordinary women photographers I know, admire, and deeply respect. Many of these photographers have also generously contributed their imagery to Vital Impacts print sale initiatives, helping raise critical support for conservation, storytelling, and emerging photographers around the world.

I have always believed that photography has the power to build empathy, create connection, and inspire action. It is incredibly moving to see so many women using visual storytelling to challenge perspectives, celebrate the beauty of our world, and advocate for wildlife, communities, and the future of our planet.

The article highlights a diverse group of photographers working across wildlife, environmental storytelling, conservation photojournalism, and advocacy. Each of them brings a unique perspective and voice to this work, and I encourage you to explore the full article and spend time with their incredible imagery.

I’m deeply grateful to be part of this community and thankful to everyone who continues to support storytelling as a force for hope, connection, and meaningful change.

My Earth Essence Presets with Luminar Neo

Posted on by Eileen Mignoni

I’m excited to announce my partnership with Luminar Neo. We have launched an exclusive Earth Essence Presets Collection that captures the essence of classic darkroom techniques. These presets are crafted to help you make subtle, yet powerful enhancements to your portrait, landscape, and wildlife photography.

Guided by a strong commitment to ethical standards, my image processing ensures that changes in color, density, contrast, and saturation never alter or obscure the original content of the photograph.

With each purchase of these presets, you’ll enhance your own photography and support Vital Impacts, our non-profit dedicated to empowering the next generation of environmental photographers.

These before-and-after images are an example of the presets in action. They show the orphaned elephants at Reteti Elephant Sanctuary. This incredible organization, run by the Samburu community, rescues, rehabilitates, and reintroduces orphaned elephant calves to the wild. Discover more and get involved by following Reteti and Sarara Foundation.

I’m also sharing some favorite photos from India as well as my long-term work with scientists successfully bringing China’s pandas back from extinction.

Ami Vitale to Receive Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service

Posted on by Eileen Mignoni

The Missouri School of Journalism has announced the 2022 recipients of the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service, a prestigious award recognizing lifetime or superior achievement in journalism or strategic communication. Two individuals and a nonprofit media organization will accept their medals at an evening reception and banquet on Wednesday, Oct. 19, beginning at 6 p.m. at The Atrium on Tenth, 22 N. Tenth St., in Columbia, Mo.

This year, Ami Vitale will be honored alongside Jeff Goodby, Co-founder and co-chair of advertising agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (GSP) and The Marshall Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to criminal justice journalism.

Medalists are selected by the faculty of the School, which has awarded the Missouri Honor Medal annually since 1930 to outstanding journalists, advertising and public relations practitioners, business people, institutions, and media organizations from around the world. Past winners have included Christiane Amanpour, Sir Winston Churchill, Gloria Steinem, Deborah Howell, David Granger and Gordon Parks.

Earlier on the day of the reception, the medalists will present masterclasses on their areas of expertise to the School’s students and other guests.

Learn more and make plans to attend the ceremony here.

Hat’s Off to You All!

Posted on by Eileen Mignoni

My heart is exploding with love and gratitude to all of you who made the Vital Impacts fundraiser for humanitarian aid a huge success. Thanks to the outpouring of support, the print initiative sold over $800,000 of iconic, fine art prints by some of the world’s most fascinating photographers. 

I am grateful for the generosity of my colleagues and friends who donated their work and to everyone who purchased and shared the campaign. 100% of profits from these sales will go to Direct Relief who are working to improve the health of the most vulnerable people around the world. 

Visit vitalimpacts.org and follow us on Instagram at @vital.impacts to learn more, including how to get involved.

Thank you to all the media who featured this campaign around the world, including CBS Evening News, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Financial Times, GEO, Stern, Afar, Forbes, My Modern Met, Vogue, Mongabay, Pop Photo, NBC Montana, Treehugger, Upworthyand more.

I also want to thank Canson Infinity for generously donating their paper and Paper & Ink Studio and The Print Space for their meticulous work printing the images.

2018 World Press Photo Nature Stories Nomination

Posted on by Eileen Mignoni

I’m humbled and honored to be among the nominees for 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, Joseph Lolngojine, a Samburu warrior turned elephant caretaker, watches over Kinya. Moments after this photo was taken, it was decided to bring her to the sanctuary to try to save her life.

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. This year, World Press Photos will announce the winners at the Awards Show in Amsterdam on April 12, 2018.

Shortlisted for the main prize are five photographers, Patrick Brown, Adam Ferguson, Toby Melville, Ronaldo Schemidt and Ivor Prickett with Prickett nominated for two separate images shot in Mosul. World Press Photo launched a new code of ethics for entrants, which means that images submitted to the prize have been thoroughly checked before the shortlists have been announced.

The Guardian Warriors of Northern Kenya

Posted on by Ami Vitale

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Please see my new work in National Geographic Magazine which will be published in the August, 2017 issue of the magazine about an elephant sanctuary in Northern Kenya. What makes it so special is that it is owned and operated by the indigenous Samburu community. It was a privilege to be allowed into this sacred place. In a world where we often focus only on the things that divide us, it’s important also to talk about the solutions and a way forward. The indigenous people living side by side to the wildlife hold the keys to saving what is left. Please considering visiting  Kenya or even contributing to the sanctuary. Link is at end of this story. 

Deadline for Alexia Photography Grant Approaching

Posted on by Ami Vitale

The Alexia grant is a phenomenal award that provides grants and scholarships to photojournalists, enabling them to create work that gives voice to those who go unheard, fosters cultural understanding and exposes social injustice. In 2000, this grant changed my life when I won the professional grant. I was young and inexperienced and it allowed me to start my first story in the tiny, impoverished country of Guinea Bissau.  It was there – without the pressure of a deadline, or the expectation of a magazine  that I learned the importance of patience, of taking time to tell a story.  I thought I would stay a month but ended up living there for a half year, telling the stories of how the majority of people on this planet live. It was a powerful turning point when I realized I want to spend my life working to highlight the commonalities of human existence rather than our differences. It was also at that moment I realized that I was not going to be just a photographer. I was also going to be a storyteller.

The deadline for The Alexia Foundation Professional and Student Grants is Jan. 13, 2014 at 2 p.m. Eastern Time. The Professional Grant carries a prize of $20,000 for a professional photographer to produce a substantial photo or multimedia story that makes the world a better place.  There are a total of six Student Grants available. The student winner will receive funding for a semester at the Syracuse University London Program,  a $1,000 cash grant to help produce the proposed body of work, a $300 gift card from Dury’s Photo and $500 will be awarded to that student’s academic department. Student awards will also be given to a Second Place Winner, and three Award of Excellence Winners.

This year, a new student grant has been added, The Gilka Grant, honoring Robert E. Gilka, the longtime director of photography for National Geographic Magazine and an important supporter of The Alexia Foundation. The Gilka Grant will recognize the best project proposal that also includes a multimedia component. The winner will receive a $1,500 scholarship to attend the Kalish Workshop.

I hope you apply and submit those proposals that inspire us. At the end of the day all of us are not only photographers.  We are storytellers and its important to cover not just the headlines but also to focus on the stories that unite us. Good luck!

Link to student grant: http://www.alexiafoundation.org/grants/student_rules

Link to professional rules: http://www.alexiafoundation.org/grants/professional_rules

Link to grants page: http://www.alexiafoundation.org/grants

COFFEELAND: Images from Ethiopia in Afar Magazine

Posted on by Ami Vitale

Check out this month’s issue of AFAR travel magazine and the story “COFFEELAND” by writer David Farley. This was an epic journey across Ethiopia tracing the origination of coffee that goes back to the thirteenth century. Legend says that a herder named Kaldi noticed his goats “dancing” after nibbling bright red berries. Kaldi brought the berries to a nearby monastery where holy men declared they must be the work of the devil and threw them into a fire. Yet, the aroma was too tempting and they quickly raked the roasted beans from the embers, ground them up, and dissolved them in hot water, yielding the world’s first cup of coffee.

This journey did not involve dancing goats but I did travel with brilliant coffee expert Geoff Watts from Intelligentsia coffee and the incredible people from TechnoServe who taught me more than I could ever imagine about my favorite beverage. I also got to meet farmers who showed me what they believed was THE ORIGINAL COFFEE TREE. This happened  in two different villages and there seems to be some debate over which one holds the original tree. Wherever the truth lies, I do know that the culture around coffee in Ethiopia is a serious affair. Its much more than gulping bottomless cups on the go. For those who’ve been invited to a coffee ceremony, it the highest possible gesture of respect and friendship. If you are attending an Ethiopian coffee ceremony, be prepared for a long wait. A traditional ceremony can last a couple of hours and it feels like a spiritual ritual as incense is burned and the grounds are brewed three times.  The first round of coffee is called awel, the second kale’i and the third bereka which actually means ‘to be blessed’.

The experience and knowledge changed the way I will ever think about coffee. Here in the USA, we sling it back but after witnessing first hand the tremendous energy and love it takes to get the best beans to market,  I came back a changed woman. And on the advice of these coffee experts, my french press is now sadly sitting in the back of the closet and we are brewing coffee by hand with the best roasted Ethiopian coffee. Here are some of the images from the trip but pick up a copy of Afar to see the whole story.

National Geographic Workshop in Santa Fe

Posted on by Ami Vitale

I’m looking forward to teaching a multimedia workshop at the Santa Fe workshops from February 17-23, 2013.   This week long workshop will be intense and challenging but  ultimately very rewarding. I will be exploring  how to make the jump from stills to video and will focus on helping the students tell more compelling visual stories using video, audio and still imagery.  I will also delve into the process of getting work published from first crafting the initial proposal, finding a storyline, gaining access to subjects and finally editing the work into a cohesive story. Participants will be expected to document a short story and edit it together during the week. I will also talk about the business itself and address issues like writing proposals, understanding copyright, contracts and model releases. This is a workshop about producing real reportage, getting honest feedback, and ultimately how to get work published.