This is one of my most popular images of Angkor Wat/Ta Prohm. I had just come out of the maze of tunnels I took to get to this courtyard, and stopped just outside of the door because there was another photographer with a tripod in the area I wanted to set up. As I waited I noticed the tree root and the textures of it. Then I noticed the stone and its textures. I started setting up with the photographer still in frame. It was early and I knew I would not have long before some other tourists would wander into the courtyard. As soon as the photographer left, I made my exposure. Just as I did a group of tourists walked into the frame.
It was not one of the images that caught my eye immediately as I started going through an edit ten years ago. It was not one of the several 4x5s that I remembered most because the others had much more thought going into them. A lot of time I would return for a shot the next year after reviewing the shot from a 6x7 and re-shoot on the larger format.
I really had no way to print all of my negs for many years. Once while visiting my family I used a friend's darkroom to proof the big negatives and decided to give this one to my mother for a Christmas Present. It was in her living room for years and the more I looked at it the stronger it became for me. When she died I inherited it back and it soon became a favorite. The silver-gelatin print I made still did not seem to have the quality I saw in the negative. I had a friend scan it for me and made my corrections for brightness and contrast in Photoshop and the prints began to 'sing' in a way I had hoped.

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You are unlikely to see any photos of this Aqua Duct Ruins anywhere else. It is on the long road between temples and very few tourists stop to see it since it lacks the impressiveness of the main temples.I enjoyed it as one of a very few quiet places in Angkor, and it stayed quiet most of the day. Photographed with my 4x5 view camera.

Most photos that you see of The Bayon in Angkor Thom are similar shots of some of the dozens of faces of the king. If you had a chance to wander around The Bayon, you would know it is so much more than the faces. It is easy to lose yourself in the mazes of hallways and passages that weave in and out of the temple. Unlike Angkor Wat it is not laid out in perfect rectangles. Instead it is a series of complex angles of walls and passages, that I tried to capture a bit with this photograph.

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After my third or fourth visit to Angkor Wat, when I had rid myself of the syndrome of "OOH... let's get some pictures of the faces!" I started to explore The Bayon more thoroughly. As with any of the temples it is an effort of climbing and sometimes even crawling over stones. I was particularly taken aback by the way the sunlight hit the weathering on these stone columns. I did manage to capture one of the faces though. It is between the two columns on the left. If I had not, I might not have known all of these years later that it is The Bayon. This was taken with my 4x5 field camera.

I never missed an opportunity to photograph Angkor when I was there; especially rainy days. Although I photographed the temples between 1993 and 1999 when there were far fewer tourists than there are today; I always had to contend with a few walking around in front of my camera, which is why I loved early mornings. Hardly anyone was out at the temples before 9AM, and on rainy days, I would seldom see a soul.
On this day there were not even any touts about. Only one young Khmer boy who followed me around staying away from my camera and the direction it was pointed. He most likely was an orphan who lived in the temples; and was curious about the crazy white man who was walking in the rain with a camera. On the rainy days I usually used my Fuji 6x9 rangefinder camera. That is what I used for this shot.

Although Angkor wat was the biggest and most beautiful of the temples; I spent less time there than I did at Ta Prohm or The Bayon. It was just too difficult to get great photographs without someone wandering in front of my camera. The rainy season provided me the opportunity to show the temples the way they were for centuries: Quietly Abandoned!

The discolorations of the sandstones that make up the temples are fascinating for a photographer. The rough stones take on a special look during the rains giving the buildings a sheen that you do not see at other times. Tourists staying in their hotels waiting for the rains to stop never experience these beautiful times at Angkor.