Battle of Lanka, Study 1

Feral vow held fast—
stone bares the soul’s quiet teeth
in a war of light.

Captured in the half-light of pre-dawn, Battle of Lanka, Study 1 is drawn from one of the most intricate and spiritually charged bas-reliefs of Angkor Wat.  It reveals a single moment—often lost within the sweeping tumult of the Ramayana’s war—a monkey warrior in fierce, almost tender combat, teeth buried in the thigh of a demon.

Yet this image is not about violence.
It is about what lies beneath it.
Loyalty as devotion.  Sacrifice as grace.

This is not reportage.  It is reverence made visible.

Exposed on black and white film using a medium format camera, the photograph was later hand-shaped using classical chiaroscuro techniques to sculpt the play of light and shadow, subtly revealing the dimensional soul of the stone.  The final tonal range—carefully hand-toned—evokes both the physical depth of the carving and the emotional resonance I experienced standing before it in silence.

What you see here is not merely a record of Angkor’s past, but a conversation between stone, spirit, and artist.
Each print is a meditation, the result of many quiet hours spent shaping captured light to align with the feeling of the place: its mystery, its sacred gravity, its breathless stillness beneath the storm of time.

This edition has been crafted to the highest museum standards—printed with archival pigment on the finest fine art paper, and limited with great intention.  Each print bears the quiet intensity of the moment it was made.

For the discerning collector, Battle of Lanka, Study 1 is more than an artwork.  It is an encounter with something ancient and enduring—
a gesture held in stone that still speaks of duty, devotion, and the unseen weight of the sacred.