Pamella Bordes

Pamella Chaudry Singh (born 1961 in New Delhi, India), known during her marriage as Pamella Bordes, is an Indian-born photographer and former Miss India who briefly hit the headlines in the United Kingdom in 1988 and 1989 as the companion of several public figures, including the editors of two upmarket Sunday newspapers. She has pursued a career as a professional photographer.

Personal history

Singh was born in New Delhi in 1961; her father, Major Mahinder Singh Kadian, was an officer in the Indian Army. She attended the Maharani Gayatri Devi Girls’ Public School in Jaipur then transferred to the Lady Sri Ram College in Delhi to study literature. She won the Miss India crown in 1982 and represented India in the Miss Universe pageant the same year. She subsequently moved to Europe, where she met and married Henri Bordes. She left Henri Bordes after three months. A motorcycle accident in Bali, caused whilst being chased by reporters, left her seriously injured.

Photography

Pamela Singh studied at the Parsons School of Design in New York, US, the American University of Paris, France and the International Center of Photography, New York, US. She started working in the dark room at the age of 13 experimenting with old negatives. She took pictures much later on and initially worked as a photojournalist in Africa, Southeast Asia and India. Her work was distributed by Gamma Press Photos and was published in newspapers and magazines like The Independent of London, The Sunday Times, Marie Claire, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Paris Match and Photo.

While in Africa she also made wildlife documentaries on 16mm film, and later photographed the civil unrest of the continent. After leaving Africa she moved to New York and worked only in black-and-white photography for several years. Her work featured in India: A celebration of independence organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, US in 1997 and accompanied by a catalogue and essay by Victor Anant, published by Aperture, New York, US. This exhibition travelled worldwide. The same year her work appeared in a group show titled Black and White sponsored by the Ford Foundation.

In 2003 she adopted a new style of work mostly self-portraits using mixed media in which the work was photographed and hand painted, leading to a solo exhibition at Admit One Gallery, New York. She simultaneously opened with Sepia International Gallery, New York, showing her portfolio from Angkor Wat. She has also shown her work in shows at The Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, Massachusetts, US, Auckland Museum of Art, The Daimler Contemporary, Germany, and Naturemorte, New Delhi.

External links

• Feature from the Hindustan Times

Preceded by Ruchita Kumar

Miss India 1982

Succeeded by Rekha Hande