The Angkor Photography Project / Ancient Cambodia in Black and White: Project Overview
Ever since I was a child, I have wanted to explore the ancient temples of Angkor, but until fairly recently I lacked the funds and time to make it happen. However, after a long period of scrimping and saving, I finally made it to Cambodia in August of 2009 where I spent one month photographing perhaps the most beautiful architectural ensemble in the world.
The Angkor archaeological area covers more than 400 square kilometres in the province of Siem Reap, and contains more than 100 monuments of which there are two-dozen major temples. Having survived the passage of time, the harsh double monsoon of the region, countless droughts and numerous wars, Angkor Wat remains one of the most awe inspiring religious monuments ever built, and is a clear demonstration of the genius and ingenuity of its ancient builders. The French explorer Henri Mouhot, who ‘re-discovered’ Angkor Wat in the 1850’s, described it by saying: "One of these temples – a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michelangelo – might take an honourable place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome." Angkor Wat is a representation of the Hindu cosmology. Its universe has a central continent surrounded by 6 concentric rings of land and 7 concentric oceans. Incredibly, the volume of stone used in its construction equals that of the Great Pyramid in Egypt.
Though Angkor Wat is the best known and best preserved of the Angkorian temples, I desperately wanted to photograph the remote ‘jungle’ temples that I had read about when I was growing up, which until relatively recently were difficult to access safely due to the vast number of mines spread throughout Cambodia’s rural countryside and jungles. It is a well-known fact that tourism is radically changing Angkor, and Cambodia as a whole, which is why I wanted to visit these temples while it is still possible to create dreamlike photographs that show an Angkor that is rapidly vanishing: a hidden realm of temples lost in the forest.
After the demise of the Angkor Empire, the surrounding jungle reclaimed the vast majority of the decaying ruins (with the notable exception of Angkor Wat, which unlike other monuments was continuously occupied by monks, and not devoured by jungle). The jungle, in sometimes bizarre and extraordinary ways, has reclaimed the vast majority of temples, and in many occasions the two have become inseparably entwined. The sinister root systems of giant fig and silk cotton trees now envelop ancient doors and windows in a beautiful sort of stranglehold, and lichen covers almost every inch of stone. I found that it is possible to be all but completely alone when visiting some of the more remote archaeological sites, which greatly enhances the sense of mystery and grandeur of the temples, and has the effect of elevating the senses and increasing appreciation.
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