Ami Vitale has crisscrossed the U.S. taking remarkable photographs. We asked her to answer a few questions for our readers.

You’ve traveled to 85 countries. What is the best aspect of traveling as a photographer and what’s the toughest part?

Photography is an incredible passport to engaging and changing the world. It’s a tough job if you are serious about it, and you have to be serious about it if you want to make a living at it. It sounds romantic to travel the world taking photos but the reality is that you must be emotionally self-reliant. I look back on experiences I had and now wonder how I got through some of them. They were sometimes unimaginable, often lonely and occasionally utterly terrifying. On the other hand,the people and experiences changed my life, showed me all the possibilities that exist and inspired me to continue.

We know you’re working to illustrate some of the problems that women face in various cultures. Why is this important to you?

For the last 13 years I’ve worked covering issues primarily about women, poverty, health and security.  I’ve seen firsthand, how women in developing countries bear the greatest burden as a result of climatic shifts. I also see that with effective programs, a real difference can be made in their lives.

For example, women must walk farther for water (some women walk up to 11 hours a day for poor quality water) or they must stay behind and care for their children when floods force the men to move and seek better resources. I’ve become involved with a group of scientists, writers, filmmakers and photographers dedicated to the mission of raising awareness and funding to help empower women and girls in emerging nations around he world. We recognize that programs that give women the tools to affect change are some of the most effective programs, because women reinvest those resources and share them with others.

Tell us about one specific problem that women have to face that you’ve photographed.

Scientists are predicting that climate change could lead to a rise in sea levels that would flood at least 17 percent of Bangladesh and create around 20-35 million refugees by 2050.  The poorest are the most affected by climate change but they are the least responsible for it. Right now Bangladesh appears far away, but our planet’s ecosystem is an intricate web and the lessons learned here, are important for all of humanity.

There’s a great picture on your site of an Ethiopian woman making coffee. Explain what’s happening in the picture and tell us a little about this trip. 

Ramla Sharif roasts coffee inside her home in the village of Choche in Ethiopia. Legend has it this is the birthplace of coffee. Ethiopians drink around half of all coffee they grow; preparing it with a set of traditional rituals in a ceremony handed down over centuries.

Usually brewed by women, the process begins with the lighting of a fire on which is placed a jabena – a traditional round clay pot with a short spout and a long neck in which water is boiled. A pan with green coffee beans is put on top of a separate pot of burning charcoal and roasted until the beans become black and shiny. To make sure everything takes place in the right atmosphere, incense is lit.

Once the coffee is roasted, it is ground using a wooden mortar and pestle, then put into the jabena. The mixture is boiled again, then sieved and poured into small, handleless cups and drunk in three rounds, starting with abolandtona – first and second in Amharic – then finally baraka – blessing. Preparation alone can take half an hour; the drinking can last for hours.

Coffee is a vital part of Ethiopian life. Directly or indirectly, around one-quarter of the population depends on it for their livelihood. The world’s fifth largest producer in 2012, exports of beans earned the country more than half a billion dollars. The region is home to the largest pool of genetic diversity in the world of coffee. It is home to more genetic diversity in coffee than the rest of the producing countries combined by a huge margin.

If you were forced to pick one picture that has impacted you, which one would it be? Why?

I was 21 years old when I took this picture. Its in Guinea Bissau in West Africa – it was then and it remains today one of the poorest countries on earth.  I was an editor for AP at the time.  I was not a professional photographer – I could not imagine being one at that time. My sister was in the Peace Corp in GB and I thought I would visit her for a few weeks. Those weeks turned into months, then half a year.  It was here – 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.

It was not the Africa of war and famines and plagues, nor was it the idealized world of safaris and exotic animals. It was something in between. I spent the days learning the language of Pulaar.  I carried water, gathered firewood, and experienced life just as the majority of people on the planet live.  When the food was running out we all went hungry. All through it, I kept shooting.

To the women, I was totally useless. I did not have a baby nor a husband, I could barely cook, and I couldn’t even get water out of the well without help.  But I think they trusted me because of the years my sister had spent living with them and they loved her like a daughter. I became accepted into the community and once I was accepted and gained their trust, all these wonderful stories began to emerge.

Though my life in GB was vastly different from our lives here, that was not really surprising. In fact, it was expected. What was truly surprising were all the things that we shared.

My last evening I sat with a group of children beneath a sea of stars talking into the night about my return home.  One of the children, Alio,looked up and asked me if we had a moon in America. Whenever there is a full moon today, I still think of him. He believed America was so far away we would not share the same moon in our sky.

That was a 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 at that moment I realized that I wasn’t going to be just a photographer. I was also going to be a storyteller.

Where are you off to next? Tell us about your next assignment.

I’m following the Danube River with a group of 8 other women photographers. We all were recipients of the prestigious Magnum grant in honor off IngeMorath and we wanted to pick up where she left off. She always wanted to finish photographing the Danube River.

We are driving a mobile exhibit with her work, giving nightly projections and portfolio reviews, teaching young women photographers along the way and creating a new body of work about the Danube. This is part of an epic journey called Danube Revisited: The IngeMorath Truck Project, following in the footsteps of a photographic pioneer. Learn more about it on this website and watch the video.

The Danube project was a collaborative venture between 9 photographers. It’s as much about our own experience as it is creating an experience for young women photographers and giving them a platform to share their work and see the work of the great IngeMorath.

Learn more about Ami Vitale and her work on her website. You can also follow her on Facebook and Twitter.