Stone Listening to Light
“What endures is not untouched form, but the silence that holds it.”
She leans forward—not to move, but to remember. Carved into the rainworn sandstone of Preah Khan Temple, the apsara depicted in Grace in the Stone appears suspended between dance and dissolution. Her gesture, once crisp, is now a softened echo—but still it speaks.
Preah Khan was built as a monastic complex, a sacred axis of learning and compassion. Within this vast stone labyrinth, Lucas Varro found not monument, but breath. The figure he encountered in the temple’s western gallery had been smoothed by decades of monsoon and time. Her form was not preserved—it was transfigured.
The photograph was made using a large-format camera and exposed just before dawn. The long exposure allowed the low light to write itself across the surface of the film. Later, in the studio, the image was hand-toned using classical chiaroscuro methods, not to dramatize, but to restore the emotional weight of what light had touched.
Grace in the Stone marks a turning inward within the Spirit of Angkor series. From monumental guardians and cosmic towers, the lens moves here to a solitary presence—weathered, quiet, enduring. Her grace is not that of survival, but of surrender. It is a grace shaped by loss, not in spite of it.
This is a portrait of presence. Of what still breathes when most has faded.
The print is offered as a hand-toned archival pigment print on museum-grade Hahnemühle Bamboo paper, in a strictly Limited Edition of 25, with 2 Artist’s Proofs held in the studio archive. Each impression is signed, numbered, and accompanied by a certificate.
What you hold is not merely a photograph. It is a silence that continues.
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
Preah Khan 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)
Dawn drifts across Preah Khan like a whispered psalm, finding an apsara carved mid-breath, her worn features turned toward a light that has travelled centuries to meet her.
Stone damp with night rain exhales; moss darkens the thresholds; silence grows until it feels almost visible—an unseen veil between the present and something immeasurably older.
I approached barefoot, each muted footfall dissolving into the hush. In that suspended moment her gesture seemed to move without moving, inviting the heart to remember a rhythm older than speech.
Captured on large-format black-and-white film, the exposure lingered, allowing low light to carve shadow like water over stone. In the studio, meticulous hand-toning and classical chiaroscuro extended the devotion, revealing subtleties of grain and breath otherwise lost.
Printed as a museum-grade archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Bamboo paper, this work is limited to twenty-five impressions, with two Artist’s Proofs—each signed, numbered, and accompanied by a certificate.
Welcome her stillness as a quiet threshold within your own space.
Previously titled ‘Apsara I, Preah Khan Temple, Angkor, Cambodia. 2020,’ this photograph has been renamed to better reflect its place in the series and its spiritual tone. The edition, provenance, and authenticity remain unchanged.
