The Image That Waits with You
She does not ask to be seen. She waits to be remembered.
There is a devata who lives in the shadowed gallery of Angkor Wat’s third tier. Her form is carved in high relief, but her presence feels breathed. She holds a lotus. Her crown lifts toward the lintel’s curve. Her lips bear the gentle wear of centuries of reverent touch. This is no ornament. This is a memory given form.
Lucas Varro encountered her just before sunrise. The temple was empty. Rain had passed. The hush was not silence, but sanctity. Using large-format black-and-white film, he captured her slowly—an exposure lasting minutes. Later, in the studio, he shaped the image through chiaroscuro and hand-toning, coaxing from shadow not clarity, but presence.
The result is She Who Waits in Shadow—an image that reveals nothing quickly, but everything eventually. It is not a photograph of a figure. It is a meeting with stillness.
As part of the Spirit of Angkor series, this work invites the viewer into sacred reciprocity. What you bring to the image, it holds. What you wait for, it gives.
Printed as a hand-toned archival pigment print on museum-grade Hahnemühle Bamboo paper, the edition is strictly limited to 25 + 2 Artist’s Proofs. Each print is signed by the artist and offered as a devotional object of light, breath, and reverent craftsmanship.
This is not a record of what was seen. It is a presence that waits—with you.
Also in Library
Hands of the Sculptor — The Craft as Meditation
In the hush of the galleries, the sculptor listens rather than strikes.
Each breath, each measured blow, opens silence a little further.
Unfinished reliefs reveal the moment when mastery becomes meditation—
when patience itself is carved into being,
and the dust that falls at a mason’s feet becomes the residue of prayer.
The Asura Within
At the gates of Angkor Thom, gods and demons share a single serpent.
Across this bridge of struggle the pilgrim learns that the asura is not evil but unfinished — the restless force within each of us still grasping for light.
To cross the naga is to balance passion with compassion, struggle with stillness, shadow with dawn.
Garuda and the Serpent · Flight and Surrender
Between Garuda’s wings and the Nāga’s coils, Angkor breathes its oldest truth: flight and surrender are one motion. In the carvings where sky and water entwine, the pilgrim learns that freedom depends upon gravity, and that stillness itself is a kind of flight.
$260
Angkor Wat 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
10.75 x 6.2 inches (27.3 x 15.7 cm)
She waits in the silence of the sanctum, where time has stilled and stone has begun to breathe. Before the sun could reach her, before even the birdsong stirred, she stood in shadow—soft-lipped, bare-shouldered, crowned in stillness.
This devata, carved high into the third tier of Angkor Wat, reveals not only the beauty of divine form, but the sacred patience of centuries. Smoothed by reverent touch and wrapped in the hush of dawn, her presence transcends ornament. She is not a relic—she is remembrance.
The photograph was taken on large-format black-and-white film using long exposure in near darkness. It was shaped using classical chiaroscuro techniques and hand-toned by the artist to honor the emotional atmosphere of the moment. The result is a print of deep dimensionality and reverent quiet.
Each signed and numbered print is rendered on museum-grade Hahnemühle Bamboo paper, in a strictly limited edition of 25 + 2 Artist’s Proofs.
She does not ask to be seen—she waits to be welcomed into silence.
To step further into the breath behind this moment, click here to explore the Artist’s Journal.
