Home Ground

• Jaisalmer fort
• 07:10
• 19°C, clear, cool morning

Jaisalmer fort is not a monument, it is a neighbourhood with battlements. From our roof the sandstone town runs to the haze in every direction, the same colour as the desert it grew out of. I have photographed this view my whole life and it has never once repeated itself.

• Gadisar Lake
• 06:50
• 18°C, still, birds loud

The old rain tank, ringed with chhatris, catfish boiling under thrown puffed rice. I came at dawn before the paddleboats woke and shot from the ghat steps with pigeons detonating around the domes at intervals. Every drop of this water was once the whole point of the city.

• Sam sand dunes
• 06:40
• 16°C, dawn haze

Out at Sam the tourist camps sit in the haze like circuitry printed on the sand, tent rows and vehicle tracks radiating to nothing. I flew at first light before the heat shimmer ruins the long shots. The desert looks organised from up here, which is its best joke.

launch from the truck bonnet, sand never touches the belly

• Dunes beyond Sam
• 07:30
• 20°C, light wind

Between dunes, two tufts of sewan grass and a page of wind ripples. This is what most of the Thar actually looks like: not the postcard dunes but a script of sand and survivors. I landed the drone and shot this on my knees like it deserved.

• Near Sam, Thar desert
• 17:20
• 29°C, dust, gold light

Late afternoon, a camel train came through kicking a dust cloud that turned the sun into a bulb behind cloth. I kept the drone well off to the side and high; camels have opinions about propellers, and the herder's opinion of drones is the one that counts out here. We shook hands after. Footage approved.