Over the past decade, Saumyananda has worked on a variety of projects, both factual and fiction, with such filmmakers as Kamal Swaroop, Shaunak Sen, Prateek Vats, Arun Karthick, Anamika Haksar, Thomas F Lennon and Prashant Nair. His work has played at film festivals around the world, including Cannes, Berlin, Sundance, Rotterdam, Locarno, Busan, Toronto, Hot Docs (Canada) and IDFA (Holland). He was nominated for an Asia Pacific Award (Balekempa, 2018), a 2021 Filmfare Award and, more recently, a 2023 Critics Choice Award for Best Cinematography.

His most recent work includes the documentary ‘All That Breathes’ (nominated for both a BAFTA as well as an Academy Award, and winner of the ASC Award for Best Documentary) and the Netflix limited series ‘Trial By Fire’, which opened to rave reviews and features on IMDb’s Top 100 list.

In 2022 Saumyananda was selected as one of the ten participants of BAFTA’s Breakthrough India programme. Film Companion also selected Saumyananda as one of India’s ‘Disruptors’ for the year 2022.

As well as his work as a cinematographer, Saumyananda has directed two documentaries and is presently completing his debut fiction feature as a director.

As a teacher, he has conducted workshops at the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute of India, BITS Pilani (Goa), and NYU Abu Dhabi.