The Turquoise Ledger

• Registan, Samarkand
• 18:40
• 21°C, clear, dry

Three madrasas face each other across a square built to make ambassadors feel underdressed. At dusk the tilework holds the last light longer than physics strictly allows. I set up the tripod dead centre and an Uzbek grandmother stood next to me watching the screen, approving each frame with a nod. Toughest editor I've worked with.

• Tilla-Kari Madrasa, Samarkand
• 10:15
• 19°C, bright outside, amber inside

The name means gold-covered, and the ceiling delivers — a flat dome painted to look domed, gilding laid on so densely the room glows in its own colour. The trick only reads from the exact centre of the floor, where a worn patch shows five centuries of people standing on the same spot to be fooled. I stood on it. Fooled.

• Kalyan Minaret, Bukhara
• 16:20
• 24°C, dry glare

Genghis Khan levelled Bukhara and left this one tower standing — the story says he looked up, his hat fell off, and he took it as a sign. Forty-seven metres of banded brickwork, every course a different pattern, twelfth century. I shot it into the sun to keep the geometry and lose the sentiment.

• Toqi Zargaron, Bukhara
• 17:35
• 22°C, golden

Between the trading domes a man came through on a bicycle with the low sun dragging his shadow the length of the street. Four centuries of merchants have used this exact route at this exact hour for this exact errand. The K-1 was already at my eye; some photographs are appointments.