Rain-Chant at the Eastern Gate
Night’s last echo drains away, leaving only the measured drip of rain from apsara crowns. Root and wall share one damp heartbeat; my own joins them. Film waits, cool and receptive as river stone beneath water. I wait, too, until breath thins and the hush becomes articulate. Then exposure—slow, unhurried—lets mist engrave its pale signature across the negative. Hand-toning will later kindle a muted glow, fragile as incense smoke rising from a ruined altar.
wet root, broken wall—
each keeps the other from falling
into its own hush
Also in Library
The Worm of Salt and Silence: A Myth of Creation and Ruin
The Worm of Salt and Silence rises from the ocean's depths, devouring, transforming, and shaping the land. As a boy enters its jaws, the boundaries of hunger and creation collapse, giving birth to a new world. This myth of death and rebirth unfolds in tides of flame and silence.
The Gate Beneath the Temple
A gate listens where a temple breathes. Smoke clings like a mirror, vows soften like wax, and every prayer falls downward as bread to a mouth carved in stone. Hunger speaks in liturgy and withdraws in hush. You feel the crown’s weight without jewels. You hear it. You carry it.
A Scroll Carried by Wind
Zhou Daguan came to Angkor to observe—but found a kingdom that defied explanation. This introductory scroll welcomes new readers into The Wind That Carried Me to Zhenla: a poetic resurrection of the 13th-century emissary’s journey, revoiced with reverence, wonder, and the hush of temple stone.
$250
Ta Prohm 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)
Mist still clings to the crumbling gate when the first breath of dawn slides between trees, lighting the spung’s vast roots like slow-moving water turned to wood. Stone and bark share one pulse; silence settles over their entwined bodies as though the jungle itself were praying.
Standing alone in that pale hush, Lucas Varro felt the temple inhale his presence, then exhale memory back through dripping leaves. Each droplet, each moss-soft contour became a syllable in an unspoken mantra the camera was called to receive.
Medium-format black-and-white film opened for the length of a whispered prayer, letting shadow unfold its depths. Weeks later, under darkroom glow, chiaroscuro revealed the subtle topography of moist stone. Gold hand-toning lent warmth to the midtones, creating a print that seems to breathe when light falls across it.
Strictly limited to twenty-five prints with two artist’s proofs, each 8 × 8 inch impression is signed on the border recto and born on sustainable Hahnemühle Bamboo paper—its gentle fibres echoing the living grain of root and wall.
Welcome this stillness; let it gather its hush in the quiet heart of your space.
Click here to walk deeper into the dawn-lit silence of the Artist’s Journal.
