Ami Vitale attended the University of North Carolina before working for Associated Press as a picture editor in New York and Washington, DC. She worked overtime to get enough money to make the break, initially basing herself in the Czech Republic and working around Eastern Europe. In 1995, she had visited her sister, then working for the Peace Corps in the tiny and remote village in the east of Guinea Bissau. A grant in 2000 from the Alexia Foundation for World Peace enabled her to return there to photograph in 2001. She stayed for half a year in a mud hut with a woman named Fama and her children, sharing their lives, living, eating, sleeping as they did, and helped in their everyday tasks. Since Guinea Bissau, Vitale has been based for several years in India, producing memorable work from Kashmir, Gujarat and elsewhere. Her pictures have appeared in exhibits and magazines around the world, including the major publications such as Geo, Time, The New York Times, Newsweek, National Geographic Adventure and more. She also has a list of awards, including World Press Photo, National Press Photographers Association, POY International and many others. One of them was a Magnum grant, given in honor of Inge Morath and the Canon Female Photojournalist Grant which concluded with an exhibit in Perpignan, France.
Awards
Ami won Magazine Photographer of the Year in NPPA for her Kashimir images and was also awarded by PDN and POY, and the International Photography Awards. Ami received the City of Gijon prize in Spain, the Canon female journalist award in France and the first winner for the Magnum Inge Morath grant.
Ami Vitale, Photojournalist
Jul 18 2006, 22:04
Amateur 
Photographer 
NewBie 
Amateur+ 
Master 
