Preetha is a natural storyteller. She began seeing the world within frames long before she fell in love with cameras. Her love for imagery, both visual and verbal, bolster a deep affinity for narrative. She has a strong sense of nostalgia, and her storytelling is powerful and evocative. Through her lens, she is perceptive, sensitive and honest. Her work has been repeatedly praised for beautifully and effectively capturing emotions and each character’s vulnerabilities.

She is a gold medallist from the Chennai Film Institute and her first step on to the sets was at the age of 18, where she worked as an assistant. She then went on to hone her craft at Bond University, Australia.

With a career spanning 20 years, she has shot 15 long format features in multiple languages, and several documentaries, TV commercials and music videos. She is part of The Indian Women Cinematographers’ Collective (IWCC). In 2020, she was invited to join the Indian Society of Cinematographers (ISC) and is one of the first women to be part of this elite, pan-Indian group of award winning cinematographers.

She has been honoured with several awards including the Karnataka State Award for excellence (2019) the Galatta Wonder Woman Award for Inspiring Pathbreaker in Cinematography (2019) and The Inspirational Global Woman Award in the field of Cinematography (2020). She was recently awarded Best Cinematographer at the JFW Movie Awards (2021) for the Tamil feature film Vaanam Kottatum produced by Madras Talkies.

Preetha toggles between lenses and words. Her essays have been published in The Hindu’s Sunday edition as well as several online magazines. She has most recently written the story of a new film that is under production by a prominent Kannada director.

She is fondly known as Cameraman Madam on sets.