A photographer wore a urine-soaked panda suit to take the wildest panda photos you'll ever see

One day they were in luck.

A 16-year-old bear called Ye Ye — named to celebrate the friendship between China and Japan — lumbered out of the mist. Gingerly, Vitale stuck her camera through the fence as Poon lofted the LEDs.

Vitale says the large black-and-white creature posed "like a supermodel."

"She just came up for a moment," Vitale said, "like a magician. And just showed up and disappeared, as pandas do. They're very good at disappearing."

Then the humans were alone again, stunned by their luck.

Vitale said, "We were doing the panda dance after in our panda costumes, dancing around like 'Did that just happen?'"

However, even photographing pandas within more structured habitats, like the ones where the babies are kept, proved challenging.

Flourescent lights used in the habitats flicker, and the effect will ruin an image unless the shutter speed is below 1/30 of a second. She had to make images of squirmy baby pandas without letting them motion-blur across her frame.

It's hard to overstate how unlikely many of shots were, according to Vitale.

"Really, these are million-dollar babies," she said, products of China's expensive breeding program.

"[The handlers] want you out of the way. So that was the challenge. And they've got a lot of bad media as well. So they're very sensitive. It was not easy."

On top of that challenge, she had to convince a reluctant National Geographic staff to agree to the story in the first place.

Vitale had first stumbled across the program on assignment with a film crew unaffiliated with the outlet.

"In the beginning, I have to say, I had seen thousands of photos of pandas, and I thought to myself, 'How could I possibly photograph anything that might surprise people?'" she said. "And then it turned out to be the most unimaginable, interesting operation that I could have imagined."

As National Geographic reporter Jennifer S. Holland writes in the text of the story, China appears to have achieved a turning point in its panda breeding and rewilding program.

Under the leadership of a man named Zhang Hemin (also known as "Papa Panda"), captive bear populations have ballooned past earlier targets. Handlers wear panda costumes — the same ones used by Vitale and Poon wore — so as not to habituate the creatures to people. And they've largely cracked the code of panda breeding.

But National Geographic wasn't thrilled about the idea of yet another panda story between its covers.

"It took a lot of work. Believe it or not, it took a lot of work to convince them this was a story worth running," Vitale said.

After several successful photo essays for the magazine and its side-brands, she had the clout to convince them. Before this panda story, her most well-known photo essay for the magazine covered the black rhino's return to Samburu rangelands.

Vitale got her start as an editor and photographer on the business beat, working out of Prague in the Czech Republic in the 1990s.

Then war broke out in the Balkans.

"I soon found myself going from taking portraits of businessmen and politicians to becoming a war photographer overnight," she said.

For years, Vitale covered war and conflict all over the world, focusing on regions she felt were under-covered. She always freelanced, she said, moving to Angola, Israel/Palestine, and Afghanistan.

Vitale spent the final four years of her conflict reporting in India, covering the war in Kashmir.

Kashmir is a valley on the north end of the Indian subcontinent, near the Himalayan mountains. Its control is disputed, with India, China, and Pakistan all claiming portions of the territory.

Vitale said around this time, she started to feel burnt out.

"I think I got incredibly — just had a meltdown from covering conflict for so long. And realized I was super depressed. Incredibly depressed," she said. "Definitely had post-traumatic stress — whatever the diagnosis is, I knew I needed to stop for a while."

She'd also begun receiving assignments for National Geographic brands, like National Geographic Traveler. Then came a year-long commission from The Nature Conservancy, which allowed her to turn her career toward wildlife photography.

Vitale said she hopes her work helps present a more positive image of conservation around the world.

"I find projects that I'm super passionate about," she said. "And just so you know, I literally invest a ton of money myself in the beginning. Everything I make goes right back into the work."

To sustain herself, like many National Geographic photographers, she takes commercial gigs — applying the skills of documentary and wildlife shooting to make advertisements.

She said it's worth it for the opportunity to shoot these kinds of stories.

When Vitale arrived to one panda release into the wild, it was a major media event. Other photographers and journalists showed up in bright neon jackets and vests.

Vitale, who knew how important it was to the Chinese handlers that the pandas remain undisturbed, wore a ghillie suit — the sort of fuzzy tree costume you may have seen snipers use as camouflage in movies.

"So Papa Panda sees me in this tree costume, and he runs over, gives me a hug and says, 'You, you are going to get to hold two baby pandas. President Obama, he only held one.' So he made sure that not only did I get to hold to baby pandas, but he laid out that year's whole bumper crop of baby pandas for me."

She said that kind of care made it possible for her to shoot the story with this level of access in the first place.

"I think that's what started the relationship. Trying to, like in all my stories, trying to have a little bit of empathy for who your photographing. And in this case it was the panda."

You can read the full story about China's evolving panda conservation efforts at NationalGeographic.com.