Three Weeks Shooting Cambodia's Temples: A Photographer's Paradise

I'm a freelance architectural and travel photographer based in Tokyo. I'd shot temples in Kyoto, Bagan, and Borobudur, but Angkor had always been the white whale — the one complex I'd never visited. I blocked three weeks, packed two camera bodies (Sony A7RV and A7IV), five lenses, and enough memory cards for 15,000 RAW files. Cambodia gave me every single frame I needed and a hundred I didn't expect.

I based myself in Siem Reap for the first ten days, shooting the Angkor complex methodically. Angkor Wat at sunrise is the obvious shot, but the real magic is the library pavilion reflected in the north pond at 5:45 AM — arrive before the crowds and you get a mirror-perfect reflection with mist rising off the water. I shot it four mornings, getting slightly different light each time.

Bayon was my favorite temple to photograph. Those giant stone faces, each with a slightly different expression, create incredible compositions at any focal length. I used a 70-200mm to isolate individual faces against the sky, and a 16-35mm for environmental shots that show the forest of faces receding into the distance. The best light is between 2 and 4 PM when the sun catches the eastern faces at an angle.

Ta Prohm is the temple everyone photographs, and for good reason — the strangler fig trees consuming the stone walls are extraordinarily photogenic. But the trick is to visit between 7 and 8 AM when shafts of light penetrate the canopy. By 9 AM it's overcast with crowds. I got my best shot of the entire trip here: a single beam of light illuminating a tree root wrapped around a sandstone doorway.

The remote temples were revelations. Beng Mealea, 60 km from Siem Reap, is an unrestored jungle temple where trees and stones exist in a magnificent tangle. No walkways, no guides, no other photographers at 7 AM — just me and an ancient ruin being slowly reclaimed by the forest. Koh Ker, further out, has a steep pyramid temple called Prasat Thom with views over unbroken jungle canopy to the horizon.

Preah Vihear was the most dramatic location I've ever photographed. This temple sits on a cliff edge 525 meters above the Cambodian plain. I arrived for golden hour and shot the temple silhouetted against a sky that went from orange to purple to deep blue in twenty extraordinary minutes. The drive there is an adventure — steep roads, military checkpoints, and a motorbike ride up the cliff — but the payoff is unlike anything else in Cambodia.

Beyond temples, I shot street life in Battambang (the colonial architecture and morning market are incredibly photogenic), monks in saffron robes collecting alms at dawn in Siem Reap, floating villages on the Tonle Sap, and Phnom Penh's chaotic but beautiful Central Market. Cambodia's visual richness goes far beyond its famous ruins.

I came home with 11,400 photos. After editing, I had 380 portfolio-quality images — more than any other three-week trip in my career. Three of them sold to National Geographic Traveller within a month of returning.