Alumni Profile: Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri '01, celebrity photographer

Résumé: Owner of Double Exposure Studios; co-founder in 1994 of Shakti Empowerment Education school in West Bengal, India; former teen model. Majored in anthropology.  

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Markus Kinko

The Bravo TV reality series, Double Exposure, which aired last summer gave a glimpse into the life behind the camera of Pal-Chaudhuri, who with her creative partner, Markus Klinko, creates iconic, highly stylized images of stars and celebrities — Beyoncé, Kate Winslet, David Bowie, Lindsay Lohan among them — that grace album and magazine covers and ad campaigns. The life is a glamorous one, but it’s not stress-free. Pal-Chaudhuri must come up with one image that satisfies clients, managers, and publicists — all of whom have different objectives. Nature gets a boost from technology: After a shoot, she spends up to two weeks massaging the digital images, taking the best elements from various photos and combining them to create one perfect image.  

USING ART WORK FOR A GREATER CAUSE

Pal-Chaudhuri recently shot celebrities for an ad campaign for Keep a Child Alive, which provides anti-retroviral treatment and support to children and families affected by AIDS in Africa and India. And Pal-Chaudhuri, who is branching out into directing short films and commercials, is creating a short TV documentary for the global health organization PSI.

BUILDING A SCHOOL

Pal-Chaudhuri’s work for charities and for a school she co-founded with her father at age 18 in her native India keeps her grounded. She is in charge of fundraising, advertising, and development, while her father runs the day-to-day operations of the school, located on her family’s 300-year-old estate. Today the school has some 300 children; provides literacy classes, vocational training, and microfinancing to women; and runs a homeopathic clinic. She says her photography is “challenging in its own way as an art form, but ultimately I am working for a deeper meaning in my life, which is helping others.”