Where the Gods Dwell in Fire and Stone

Photographs from Pre Rup Temple by Lucas Varro

Pre Rup rises like a sacred flame on the eastern horizon of Angkor—a temple-mountain built in devotion to Shiva, where the sun once set in ritual and the gods were invited to dwell. With its five brick towers crowned against the sky and its wide tiers etched by time, this ancient sanctuary holds both the grandeur of cosmic order and the intimacy of earthly prayer.

Here, stone carries the weight of heaven. Each stairway, each carved lion, each weathered lintel gestures toward Mount Meru, the mythic center of all worlds. Yet amid this symmetry of ascent, there is solitude—sandstone warmed by rain, shadows stretched across ruined doorways, a silence that listens.

In this luminous collection from the Spirit of Angkor series, Lucas Varro brings his large and medium format analogue cameras to Pre Rup in moments of early stormlight and devotional pause. Each image—captured on black-and-white film, then shaped by long exposure, chiaroscuro, and hand-toning—reveals not only the temple’s architecture, but its presence. A divine stillness rising through mist. A sanctum lit by the breath of dawn.

Printed in limited editions on museum-grade Hahnemühle Bamboo paper, each photograph is accompanied by a Collector’s Print Package including poetic writings, curatorial notes, and reflections from the artist’s field journals.

This is Pre Rup not as ruin, but as offering. A mountain of light, shaped in stone, where spirit once gathered—and gathers still.