Magnum Editions: Inner Mongolia, China, 1979

Eve Arnold had been applying for a visa to travel to China for well over a decade before her application was successful. Aged 67, visa secured, she obtained a book deal and undertook an assignment for The Sunday Times that saw her travel the length and breadth of the country for six months. Shooting on color film, Eve documented everywhere and everything she could – from industrial workers to art students, from the Gobi Desert to the banks of the Yangtze. This image of a girl training her horse for the militia was taken in Inner Mongolia and typifies the work she produced on the trip, which documented a country and its people emerging from years of secrecy and isolation.