I’ve been doing these things I call Desert Cantos. They’re basically chapters of a long poem. They’re portraits of the American desert and American culture that I started in 1979 and that I’ve been working on periodically ever since. I would wander around in my Volkswagen and just see what I discovered. I really never had any predetermined ideas. And one day, in 2004, I was wandering and I saw what’s called a water station; it’s a big blue barrel sitting in the middle of nowhere in the desert.

Singh discovered the ecstasy of color during his countless journeys across the Indian subcontinent: on the banks of the Ganges – he travelled the river from its source in the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal – in the Kashmir mountains, in remote villages, in the bustle of city crowds. In Singh’s images, the rich, seductive hues of India, the vermillion of women’s saris, the saffron of sadhus’ robes,