A five-time recipient of World Press Photos, including the first prize for her 2018 National Geographic magazine story about a community in Kenya protecting elephants, American photographer Ami Vitale has captivated audiences at Sharjah’s International Photography Festival (XPOSURE 2019) with her body of work, and also given them something essential to think about. 

 

Speaking at a session titled ‘Reframing the Narrative’ to a packed auditorium on Friday, September 20, at the Expo Centre in Sharjah, Ami drew the audience’s attention to this fact – ‘human activity is taking down one million plants and animals, causing the sixth extinction event on this planet.’

 

She said: “And this extinction is different. Humans drive it, and it’s happening at an incredibly accelerated rate.” Accompanied with a powerful body of work, including images from some of the most breathtaking locations across the world, Ami regaled audiences with personal stories about individuals who, against all the odds were changing the destiny of the wildlife they coexist with. “The survival of all species is intertwined with our own,” she noted.  

 

Before launching into a journey as a photographer, Ami admits she grew up a ‘gawky young woman who was afraid the world’. “When I picked up a camera as a teenager, I changed as a person,” she said, adding, “The real power of photography is that it can connect people, communities, cultures and countries, and help us understand one another. It amplifies voices, which perhaps wouldn’t otherwise be heard.” 

 

Ami gave up a career as a photo editor with Associated Press and later applied for a grant to work in a little West – African country called Guinea-Bissau. “To my surprise, I got the grant. I was to spend two weeks which ended up becoming two months and later turned into half a year. What I found was a stunning narrative where people were connected to the natural world. Trees had spirits in them…. they (the people) understood their lives were dependent on nature,” Ami continued. 

 

The acclaimed photographer said her experiences with African tribes and indigenous communities, experiencing hunger with them, spending most of her days gathering water, firewood and other life essentials helped her become one of the world’s most empathetic storytellers. For over a decade, Ami travelled to cover the conflicts in Kashmir, Gaza, and Afghanistan living in mud huts and contracting malaria.

 

However, Ami said she eventually progressed in her journey from documenting warzones to telling important wildlife and environmental stories concerning our generations. Her most influential body of work ‘The Guardians’, currently exhibited at XPOSURE 2019, is an incredibly hopeful story of the Ol Pejata Conservancy’s efforts to save the last remaining northern white rhinos in the world. She spoke at length on the work she has done with mystical and elusive pandas in China and her work with the Reteti Sanctuary — the first community-owned elephant and rhino sanctuary in East Africa.