She is the first and till date the only Indian woman who has won the National Film Award for Best Cinematography.
[4] Upon graduation, she decided to join the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) to do a course in cinematography, which she felt was an ideal platform to express her "creativity".
[6] Upon completing her course at the FTII, she joined Santosh Sivan as an apprentice and went on to assist him in various films including two Hollywood productions – The Mistress of Spices and Before the Rains.
[6][7] She was the second unit camerawoman for Mani Ratnam's Tamil–Hindi bilingual films Raavan and Raavanan (2010).
[8] She got a break as an independent cinematographer through Kutty Srank, a Malayalam film directed by Shaji N. Karun.