Field Notes
The Indian wild ass belongs to one place above all others: the Little Rann of Kutch, a vast, shimmering salt desert in Gujarat that holds the last stronghold of this subspecies.
I have photographed them across that open, heat-warped landscape, where distance, mirage and hard light are the constant challenges. Sturdy and pale-coated, they are surprisingly fast, and much of the work is simply positioning myself and waiting for one to move against the emptiness of the Rann.
There is something fitting about a wild ass that has made a salt desert its refuge — a hardy survivor in a place that asks a great deal of anything that lives there.
