She Appeared in the Breath Before Gold
The air changed before the light did.
The sun, low and thick with memory, moved across the jungle canopy as though remembering its way. I had passed the western gate of Angkor Wat many times, but that evening, something opened. The sandstone ignited—not with flame, but with reverence. There was no announcement. Just a deepening. A stillness within stillness.
She was already standing there.
Not emerging. Not revealed. Present. Her aureole flared like a forgotten flame, her hand lifted in a gesture that felt neither fixed nor in motion—something between invocation and memory. She had not been carved. She had been kept. And in that moment, offered.
I moved with the slowness such presences require. The tripod legs pressed gently into the earth. I adjusted the camera as one bows. When I exposed the film, I did so not to capture, but to kneel.
I did not ask her to stay. I shaped the image later with long hours of silence and shadow, coaxing her from silver into gold, until she glowed again—not on the paper, but within it.
light rose from the stone—
her hand caught the last silence
before the sun knelt
Also in Library
Those Who Keep the Way Open — On the Quiet Guardians of Angkor’s Thresholds
Quiet gestures shape the way into Angkor — a swept stone, a refilled bowl, a hand steadying a guardian lion. This essay reflects on the unseen custodians whose daily care keeps the thresholds open, revealing how sacredness endures not through stone alone, but through those who tend its meaning.
Multiplicity and Mercy — The Face Towers of Jayavarman VII
A new vision of kingship rises at the Bayon: serene faces turned to every horizon, shaping a world where authority is expressed as care. Moving through the terraces, one enters a field of steady, compassionate presence — a landscape where stone, light, and time teach through quiet attention.
Stone That Dreams
Bayon wakes like a mind emerging from shadow. Its many faces shift with light and breath, teaching that perception—and the self—is never singular. In walking this forest of towers, the pilgrim discovers a quiet multiplicity within, held together by a calm that feels both ancient and newly understood.
$250
Angkor Wat Temple, Angkor, Cambodia — 2021
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
9 x 7.2 inches (22.9 x 18.3 cm)
There are moments when Angkor does not merely reflect light—it becomes it. Beneath the western gate of Angkor Wat, as the sun drew its final breath, a single apsara revealed herself in the stillness. Carved in fluid poise, she did not seem made, but remembered—framed in a halo of fire-shaped stone, aglow with the gold of vanishing day.
The silence was thick with prayer. Cicadas slowed. Even the breeze seemed to listen. In that hush, her hand traced a gesture of unspoken offering. I stood before her not as artist, but as witness.
Captured on large-format black-and-white film using natural light and long exposure, the image was shaped with classical chiaroscuro to draw out presence from shadow. Each print is hand-toned in gold by the artist, not to add, but to recall the warmth that once anointed her form.
This signed and numbered work is part of a strictly limited edition of 25 + 2 Artist’s Proofs. Printed on museum-grade Hahnemühle Bamboo paper, it is both relic and revelation—a tactile offering of light and silence.
She is not a photograph. She is the breath before devotion.
Click here to enter the Artist’s Journal and walk deeper into her flame.
