Beneath the Hood, the World Falls Silent
“The stillness that shelters is not empty—
it is filled with all that no longer needs to speak.”
I stepped into the sanctuary before the heat rose, before the air began to move. The stone was cool beneath my feet, stained with time, streaked by creatures that sleep through daylight. The Buddha sat as though the centuries had passed elsewhere. His guardian hood—Muchilinda’s curled shelter—rested above him like a breath that had learned to hold itself.
There was no wind. No birdsong. Only the weight of stillness pressing in from every side.
I did not photograph him at once. I waited. I listened. And in that waiting, something settled in me. A kind of recognition. Not of form, but of what remains when everything has already fallen away.
The naga did not threaten. He did not defend. He simply watched. His stone body curled into gesture, not power. The Buddha below him was not asking to be seen—he had never left.
When I placed the tripod, it was not with intention but surrender. The film drank in the silence slowly. Later, in the studio, I shaped the print by hand, trying not to disturb what had already spoken.
coiled in temple hush
the Buddha does not return—
he has not left yet
Also in Library
From Mountain to Monastery
Angkor Wat survived by learning to change its posture. Built as a summit for gods and kings, it became a place of dwelling for monks and pilgrims. As belief shifted from ascent to practice, stone yielded to routine—and the mountain learned how to remain inhabited.
Why Theravada Could Outlast Stone
Theravada endured by refusing monumentality. It shifted belief from stone to practice, from kings to villages, from permanence to repetition. What it preserved was not form but rhythm—robes, bowls, chants, and lives lived close together—allowing faith to travel when capitals fell and temples emptied.
The End of Sanskrit at Angkor
The final Sanskrit inscription at Angkor does not announce an ending. It simply speaks once more, with elegance and certainty, into a world that had begun to listen differently. Its silence afterward marks not collapse, but a quiet transfer of meaning—from stone and proclamation to practice, breath, and impermanence.
$250
East Mebon Temple, Angkor, Cambodia — 2020
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
8 x 8 inches (20.3 x 20.3 cm)
A Buddha rests in the sanctum of East Mebon Temple, still beneath the hooded coil of a naga. The stone is weathered. The light, faint. And yet, something here endures—not in form, but in stillness.
This is not the stillness of death, but of shelter. A breath held in stone. A silence that has chosen to remain.
Captured on medium-format black-and-white film, the exposure was slow, shaped more by reverence than composition. In the studio, chiaroscuro techniques guided the image’s depth and dimension. Each print was hand-toned to echo the warmth and inwardness felt in the moment of capture.
This signed and numbered work is printed as an archival pigment print on museum-grade Hahnemühle Bamboo paper, offered in a strictly limited edition of 25 with 2 Artist’s Proofs. The print holds not only image, but presence—a quiet companion for spaces of reflection.
To welcome this image is to allow stillness to shelter the light in you.
Click here to explore the Artist’s Journal and enter the silence.
