Breathing in Stone, Holding the Gaze
Bayon, the temple-mountain of serene visages, reveals more than devotion—it reveals breath. In Where Stone Still Breathes, two faces meet across a threshold of light: one swathed in shadow, the other kissed by dawn. Their silence is not absence—it is presence enduring.
Lucas Varro captured this image on medium-format black-and-white film in the pale hush before sunrise. The long exposure allows time to settle into each fissure. Later, through chiaroscuro shaping and hand-toning, the artist guided light into gesture, shadow into breath. The photograph is not a document, but a communion.
Within the Spirit of Angkor series, this work embodies the paradox of impermanence and gaze. Here, compassion outlives empire.
Printed as a hand-toned archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Bamboo paper—chosen for its warmth, sustainability, and spiritual tactility—this image is offered in a strictly limited edition of 25, with 2 Artist’s Proofs. Each is signed and numbered on the border recto, and accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.
May it enter your space not as artefact, but as guardian. A quiet witness to stillness that still breathes.
Also in Library
Where a Name Could Not Follow
A boy in the sandstone quarries beneath Phnom Kulen learns the first law of sacred building: not strength, not speed, but attention. Where a Name Could Not Follow imagines the life of an unnamed Angkorean stone-master whose hands helped move mountain into temple — and whose name vanished where the stone endured.
The Apsara Against the Assembly Line
In the darkroom, the print rises slowly from the tray: silver darkening into shadow, stone gathering itself from blankness. At Angkor, the apsaras offer the same lesson. Though repeated in their thousands, each waits to be seen. Against the assembly line of speed and sameness, slowness restores the soul’s signature.
The Wall That Still Holds Them
Two presences endure within a wall that no longer closes seamlessly around them. One withdraws into shadow; the other comes further into the light of legibility. Around them, fracture, erosion, and carved stone become a single field of custody, where grace survives within damage, not beyond it.
$395
Bayon Temple, Angkor, Cambodia — 2018
Limited Edition Archival Pigment Print
Edition
Strictly limited to 15 prints + 2 Artist’s Proofs
Edition Number
This listing is for print 5/15 from the 12-inch Intimate Collector Edition.
Medium
Hand-toned black-and-white archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Bamboo — a museum-grade fine art paper chosen for its quiet tactility, warm natural tone, and reverent depth.
Signature & Numbering
Individually signed and numbered by the artist on the border (recto)
Certificate of Authenticity
Accompanies every print
Image Size
12 × 12 inches (30.5 × 30.5 cm)
Dawn gathers in Bayon’s corridors like water in a stone bowl, cool and unhurried. Two faces emerge from the worn architecture: one held in pale morning light, the other passing through shadow at the edge of sight. Their exchange feels less like carving than thought made visible — stone remembering itself in silence.
This intimate collector edition asks to be approached closely. At twelve inches square, the image does not command the room; it draws the body nearer. The viewer stands before the print almost face to face, close enough to enter the grain of weathered stone, the softness of worn lips, the dark hush between one profile and another. At this scale, Bayon becomes a quiet shrine of attention.
I pressed the shutter only when my breathing seemed to match the temple’s. Medium-format black-and-white film received the moment’s slow cadence; in the darkroom, shadow and glow were drawn into balance until the two faces seemed to hold one another across time. Hand-toning followed, giving each print its own quiet pulse.
Printed on Hahnemühle Bamboo, signed, numbered, and accompanied by a certificate of authenticity, this fifth numbered print from the 12-inch edition is prepared as a small threshold of reflection: a piece of Bayon’s dawn held close enough for silence to deepen.
May it find the wall where your own stillness waits.
Enter the Artist’s Journal to walk deeper into the hush behind this image.
Previously titled ‘Face Towers I, Bayon Temple, Angkor, Cambodia. 2018,’ this photograph has been renamed to better reflect its place in the series and its spiritual tone. The edition, provenance, and authenticity remain unchanged.