Waiting For the Lions by Marcel van Beek (Fine Art Photography)

“Waiting for the Lions” extends my series “Silent Places” into an artificial rock landscape, a space seemingly suspended outside time. The white, outstretched bodies of the rabbits lie across the concrete floor like islands of snow. Nothing moves, yet everything feels charged.

I am drawn to the peaceful stillness they radiate, to the softness of sleep as a Romantic evocation of Thanatos. At the same time, there is the expectation that something larger may enter and claim the space. The title seems to hold its breath. Although the lions are absent, their shadow remains palpable.

I work through reduction, allowing the colours to recede into muted tones while maintaining a deliberate distance. The light describes the scene with almost clinical restraint. What emerges is a suspended condition: neither threat nor safety, but a fragile calm under pressure.

The viewer is invited to prolong the moment, to count each breath and test it against personal memory. Perhaps what remains is simply this: a space capable of holding grace and fear side by side, like bodies that are sleeping and waiting.