Meet 10 Amazing Female Photographers On World Photography Day

It is said photograph has the power to capture a story vividly and that is what these amazing photographers are doing.

On the backdrop of world photography day, let's meet these storytellers and embrace their work. These women boldly claimed their place in the male-dominated field of photography. 

Homai Vyarawalla popularly known by her pseudonym Dalda 13 lived 98 years of her life cherishing photography and gardening. The first woman photojournalist of India was acclaimed globally for clicking prominent political figures. Capturing the 14th Dalai Lama when he entered Sikkim in India for the first time via the Nathu La was the most notable work of Vyarawalla. Google doodle honoured India's "First Lady of the lens" in 2017.

Image Credit- Homai Vyarawalla

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Dayanita Singh is an extraordinary photographer with her work published in 14 books. Singh took visual communication at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad and studied Documentary Photography at the International Center of Photography in New York City. Her work titled Museum Bhavan won PhotoBook of the Year in the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards and Infinity Award of the International Center of Photography in 2018.

Look for her work here

Sooni Taraporevala is a photographer and screenwriter. Taraporevala did solo shows at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University and exhibited her work in India, the US, France, and Britain. Few of her screenplay works include Mississippi Masala, The Namesake, and Oscar-nominated Salaam Bombay.

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Karen Dias is a documentary photographer based in New York City. Dias largely covers stories about women’s rights, state violence, and environmental issues. Dias worked as a photojournalist in UAE, India, and across Asia until 2019. She was an International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) grantee. Tisseurs d’Images Festival in France exibited her work. 

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Cheena Kapoor

A freelance photojournalist and documentary photographer based in New Delhi covers gender and mental health issues in India. Kapoor's most remarkable work is Forgotten Daughters, a project on mental health. Organisations like UNICEF, The Guardian, BBC, and more have published her work. 

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World Photography Day

Aishwarya Sridhar is a multi-talented wildlife photographer, who loves to click wild souls and pen down poetries and stories. Sridhar is also the first Indian woman to win the Wildlife Photographer of the Year award. The winning image titled ‘Lights of passion’ was selected from 50,000 entries around the globe. She is also an emerging Fellow at the International League of Conservation Photographers.

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Saumya Khandelwal is a contributing photojournalist with TIME, National Geographic, The New York Times, The Guardian, Bloomberg Businessweek, and more. Khandelwal received the National Foundation of India Award in 2017.

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Nishat Fatima is both a photographer and writer based in Hyderabad, India. Fatima contributed to Indian lifestyle magazines including Harper's Bazaar, Femina, Good Housekeeping, and India Today Travel Plus. She has also authored books titled Seriously, Sitara? (Hachette) and the fashion tome Suneet Varma (Niyogi).

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Arati Kumar-Rao is an independent environmental photographer, writer, and artist documenting the slow violence of ecological degradation. Through her photos, she reflects on environmental issues and sketches impacts on livelihood. Currently, she is on a National Geographic Explorer grant to document forced human migration and writing her first book.

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Deepti Asthana is an independent photographer and storyteller. The National Geographic Explorer covers the traditional community of rural India. World Press Photo awarded Asthana under their Global Talent 6*6 program in 2020. She is currently documenting the water crisis in Western Himalayas and its impacts on young women.

Look for her work here