The Weight of a Silent Gaze
The air before dawn was thick with sandalwood and stone. My breath slowed as I entered the gopura, matching the rhythm of monks passing ahead. The statue stood waiting—eight arms unmoving, sequins catching the last star of night. His smile had not changed in centuries.
He did not look at me. But presence has weight. It settled just behind my ribs—where memory keeps its oldest keys. Some moments cannot be framed; only received. I positioned the tripod not to act, but to listen. One long exposure became a vow.
In the darkroom, I shaped the silence with chiaroscuro. Not to replicate the moment—but to honour its hush.
The sequins held night’s last star.
A monk passed, barefoot, unnoticed.
His saffron robe touched air like wind through silk.Stone remembers patience.
Light offered nothing; it waited.
Then the shutter—and the statue—
did not move,
but something eternal did.His smile remains.
Not joy, nor sorrow.
Just the balance that outlives both.
More from the Library
The Leaf and the Pencil
A leaf holds my attention. Then I remember that I can draw. The pencil reveals things I had never noticed, but introduces its own demands: proportion, shading, the desire to make something beautiful. When I try to describe the encounter, language presents another difficulty. An essay about the uncertain distance between looking at something, understanding it, and being present with it.
The Work We Return To
We have become very good at measuring persistence, and less good at asking what deserves it.
A musician begins the same passage again. A writer returns to an unfinished sentence. Someone stands before a familiar face carved in stone, with nothing new to photograph.
What brings us back when enthusiasm has gone? And how do we distinguish devotion from the demands that quietly consume the rest of our lives?
Under the Gallery
Rain, a carved hand, and the small movements of lives separated by centuries. A new literary piece from The Vow.
$895
Angkor Wat Temple, Angkor, Cambodia — 2020
Limited Edition Archival Pigment Print
Edition
Strictly limited to 7 prints + 2 Artist’s Proofs
Edition Number
This listing is for the first numbered print from the Large Collector Edition: 1/7
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
28 x 28 inches (71.1 x 71.1 cm)
Morning gathers in the western gate of Angkor Wat, where a single thread of incense rises toward a darkened ceiling, and the eight-armed Vishnu—Ta Reach—emerges from shadow into a slant of newborn light. Sequined saffron cloth, garlands, and weathered sandstone combine not into sculpture, but into presence.
Pilgrims pass barefoot across the worn stone floor. A monk lights a stick of joss and bows beneath the vaulted hush. Here, the gods do not sleep—they listen. The artist lingers in silence, waiting not for a perfect frame, but for communion. When the shutter opens, it is in reverence.
Captured on medium-format black-and-white film, the image was shaped in the studio through classical chiaroscuro techniques and hours of patient hand-toning. Each gesture on the print speaks with its own voice—depths of shadow, glints of light, a carved smile that contains both creation and dissolution.
Printed as a hand-toned archival pigment work on Hahnemühle Bamboo paper, the result is a tactile hymn—each piece signed, numbered, and offered in a strictly limited edition of 25 with 2 Artist’s Proofs.
Let this silent guardian keep watch within your calmest room.
Previously titled ‘Ta Reach Vishnu, Study I, Angkor Wat Temple, 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.