When Stillness Becomes Flame
Joy, when carved into silence, becomes light.
At the western edge of Ta Prohm Temple, beneath the final blush of Cambodian sun, a single apsara appears mid-turn within a circular medallion of foliage. She lifts her foot. She smiles. Her body curves into a gesture so natural, so enduring, it seems the wall itself once moved—and then chose stillness.
Lucas Varro stood before her in quiet reverence. The image came slowly, not as capture but as communion. Using medium format black-and-white film, he allowed the jungle light to breathe across the sandstone. In the studio, he shaped the print with long exposure, chiaroscuro, and golden hand-toning—not to record the moment, but to remember it.
Part of the Spirit of Angkor series, She Danced the Light Awake honours the apsara not as ornament, but as sacred origin. Her joy is not frozen. It radiates—an eternal gesture preserved by devotion. Here, movement becomes mantra, and the feminine divine reveals itself not in words, but in the silence of gesture.
This hand-toned archival pigment print is offered in a strictly limited edition of 25 + 2 Artist’s Proofs. Printed on museum-grade Hahnemühle Bamboo paper, it is signed and numbered by the artist on the border recto.
To live with this print is to keep vigil with light.
Also in Library
The Silence of Scales
A staircase inhales, and silence thickens between stone scales. Each step remembers serpents once carved, pearl-light gathering in its breath. In this luminous flash gem, a traveller climbs toward hush and revelation, where silence itself becomes flame. A tale brief as an exhalation, yet lingering like pearl-light beneath moss.
The Crocodile and the Moon Eel: A Tide-Bargain
A crocodile waits in hush where river bends to moonlight. From the silt, a pearl-lit eel rises, whispering a bargain of scale and tide. What is given is never returned whole: hunger meets silence, storm keeps watch, and the river writes its law in breath.
Field Note: Blue Hour at Angkor
The blue hour settles over Angkor like a hush in stone. Naga coils dissolve into shadow, carvings soften into silence, and hunger without teeth endures. A sketch becomes listening. Each fracture is a hymn, each hollow a river. A field note on patience, memory, and the stillness that lingers.
$250
Ta Prohm 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
8 x 8 inches (20.3 x 20.3 cm)
There are moments when light seems to arrive not from above, but from within the stone.
At Ta Prohm Temple, as the sun dropped behind the jungle canopy, a warm breath of dusk spilled across the western gopura. A single apsara emerged from the wall—smiling, suspended mid-dance, her foot lifted inside a ring of carved foliage. The sandstone glowed gold, as if joy had kindled it from the inside.
Lucas Varro stood in stillness before her. The jungle had hushed. The wall seemed to breathe. And in that hush, he released the shutter—medium format black-and-white film drinking in the fading light. Later, in the quiet of his studio, the image was shaped using long exposure, classical chiaroscuro techniques, and a golden hand-toning process that recalled the warmth of that sacred dusk.
Printed on museum-grade Hahnemühle Bamboo paper, this archival pigment print is offered in a strictly limited edition of 25 + 2 AP.
She dances still—within the stillness you welcome her into.
