Alabaster Dawn, Unspoken
The corridor holds its breath. Cloudlight spills gently over the carved lintels, softening every vine, every curve of stone. The rain has passed, leaving a fine shimmer on the sandstone—an offering the jungle makes in silence. I approach her slowly, as one might approach a thought still forming.
The apsara stands poised above hamsas, her hips tilted in memory of movement, her fingers lifted toward something half-remembered. She is not stone—not entirely. Her gaze does not meet mine, and yet I feel seen.
I lower the tripod. Stillness folds over me like silk. The sky holds to its grey, leaden and luminous all at once. I wait—not for the right light, but for the hush between two breaths. Then I release the shutter. Eight seconds of listening. Eight seconds of prayer.
The exposure gathers not just form, but atmosphere—the gentle curve of shadow, the soaked air, the scent of wet lichen. Time is not captured, only remembered differently.
Stone gathers bloomlight
ancient hips recall the drum—
my heart, struck once, stills
Weeks later, beneath amber light, I cradle the negative in my hands. The chiaroscuro emerges slowly, each wash of tone shaping what the lens only witnessed. With each print, I return to that hour—not to reproduce it, but to relive the breath that preceded it.
She stands still. But something in her dances.
Also in My Journal
Stillness in the Shape of Shelter
A rain-streaked Buddha sits beneath the coiled naga Muchilinda, not to resist the world, but to hold stillness within it. This meditation reveals a print shaped by breath, not description.
The Shelter That Remains
Time gathers around the Buddha as breath, not burden. In this haibun, the artist offers a moment that does not explain itself—it simply remains, unmoving beneath the shelter of silence.
What Light Remembers
Light rests on the Buddha’s chest without revealing him. In this moment of reverent waiting, the image forms as presence—not picture. The serpent shelters, the stone remembers, and the poem listens.
$260
Banteay Srei Temple, Angkor, Cambodia — 2022
Limited Edition Archival Pigment Print
Edition
Strictly limited to 25 prints + 2 Artist’s Proofs
Medium
Hand-toned black-and-white archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Bamboo — a museum-grade fine art paper chosen for its quiet tactility and reverent depth, echoing the spirit of the temples.
Signature & Numbering
Each print is individually signed and numbered by the artist on the border (recto)
Certificate of Authenticity
Accompanies every print
Image Size
10 x 6.7 inches (25.4 x 17 cm)
The first breath of dawn slips through the jungle and finds her waiting—an apsara hewn from rose sandstone, poised as if the next beat of the drum might set her free. Around her, carved foliage curls like held incense smoke, and the corridor listens for centuries already passed.
In this recess of Banteay Srei, silence is not absence but presence: a pulse beneath the lichen, a murmur beneath stone. Hamsas lift her form as if remembering flight, while her fingers echo a gesture the body no longer remembers—but the soul does.
I met her in that breathless stillness, camera cradled like an offering. The sky hung low and grey, yet the air shimmered with presence. I waited until the light settled fully into the moment, then opened the shutter—eight seconds of reverence entrusted to film.
Crafted on medium-format black-and-white film, the negative was shaped using chiaroscuro and gently hand-toned to recover the warmth of that dawn hush. Each print is made on Hahnemühle Bamboo paper, museum-grade and soft to the eye. The edition is strictly limited to twenty-five prints, with two Artist’s Proofs.
Receive her quiet radiance as a threshold of reflection.
Let the silence she carries draw you deeper—click here to step into the Artist’s Journal.
