Chinky Shukla

Chinky Shukla (India) is a documentary photographer and National Geographic Explorer based in New Delhi. Through long-term visual storytelling, her work examines cultural assimilation, environmental change, memory and the ways historical events continue to shape people and landscapes across generations.

Since 2011, Chinky has documented the far-reaching consequences of India’s nuclear history. Her project Jadugoda: The Nuclear Graveyard explored the effects of uranium mining on Indigenous communities in Jharkhand, bringing wider attention to the environmental and human impact of the industry. Her ongoing project When Buddha Stopped Smiling, supported by a National Geographic Explorer Grant, focuses on communities living near India’s nuclear testing grounds in Pokhran, Rajasthan, where the legacy of events that took place decades ago remains present in everyday life, memory and the landscape.

Chinky’s work has been published internationally, including in National Geographic, and exhibited at photography festivals around the world. She has received recognition through the Leica Oskar Barnack Award and the Joop Swart Masterclass, reflecting a documentary practice built on sustained research, close observation and long-term engagement with the people whose stories she photographs.

Alongside documenting communities, Chinky creates opportunities for people to participate in visual storytelling themselves. In Pokhran, she has led photography workshops for local children, encouraging them to photograph their own lives and surroundings from within the community. Across her work, photography becomes not only a way to examine environmental and social issues, but also a means of creating dialogue, preserving memory and making space for perspectives that are often absent from wider public narratives.