Sonali Ohrie (b. 1995, London, UK).

I began my career working for three years as an assistant to the prolific Damien Hirst, widely regarded as the richest living artist. Today, I am proud to be co-signed by Rankin, the influential photographer and director who helped define the visual language of fashion and popular culture in the 1990s and early 2000s.

I am a South Asian photographer and director, raised in a modern, spiritual Hindu-Punjabi household in England. Perspectives like mine (Indian female voices behind the camera) remain strikingly rare in the industry, a reality that still feels shocking in this day and age.

Determined to help change that narrative, I left full-time employment to pursue my vision of a future where Asian female photographers are no longer underrepresented. That mission began publicly with my TEDx talk on South Asian image makers.

My image A Mother’s Journey won the Time Magazine Human Element Award and the Female in Focus Global Photographer Award from the British Journal of Photography, the world’s oldest photography institution. The work was exhibited in both London and New York. I am especially proud that these honors were awarded for my very first professional portrait.

A major turning point came in 2023, when the first video I created and directed was picked up by Vogue and Levi’s. Soon after, I made my official video directing debut with Apple Inc.

Since then, I have collaborated with some of today’s most influential cultural figures, including music sensation Sabrina Carpenter, EGOT artist John Legend, multi-award winner Khalid, the first Indian American to lead a Disney Channel Original Movie, Avantika Vandanapu, and acclaimed Bollywood and Hollywood actress and producer Priyanka Chopra.