Pamella Bordes

Pamella Chaudry Singh (born 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 notable individuals. She had been known in society columns as a social companion of Andrew Neil, editor of Sunday Times at the time; Donald Trelford, then editor of The Observer and of junior minister Colin Moynihan; it was then discovered she had a House of Commons security pass arranged by MPs David Shaw and Henry Bellingham. The Evening Standard and Daily Mail published allegations that she was associated with a Libyan security official named Ahmed Gadaff Al Damm.

Personal history

Singh was born in New Delhi; 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. 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, USA, The American College in Paris, France and the International Centre of Photography, New York, USA. 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, USA in 1997 and accompanied by a catalogue and essay by Victor Anant, published by Aperture, New York, USA. This exhibition traveled 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, Cambodia. Her work led to outstanding reviews in The New York Times for both bodies of work. She has also shown her work in shows at The Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, Massachusetts, Auckland Museum of Art, The Daimler Contemporary, Germany, and Naturemorte, New Delhi.

External links

• Feature from the Hindustan Times