Petal of Stone,
Breath of Rain
Grey morning settles like ash over the citadel of women. Banteay Srei stands hushed beneath the weight of cloud, its carvings damp with yesterday’s silence.
I come upon her gently—framed by curling foliage and supported by hamsas that seem ready to lift. Her presence feels partial, like a word spoken only halfway, like something not yet finished in this world.
There is a grace that doesn’t move and yet alters everything it touches. I step closer. For a moment I forget the camera. Then breath returns, and with it the shutter—held long enough for the sky to remember her.
Rain pauses on stone—
winged grace inside the silence
teaches time to bow.
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.
$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 minutes 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.
