Wikipedia defines Hic Sunt Dracones as: (Latin: hic sunt dracones) means dangerous or unexplored territories, in imitation of a medieval practice of putting illustrations of dragons, sea monsters and other mythological creatures on uncharted areas of maps where potential dangers were thought to exist. 

Hic Sunt Dracones (Here be Dragons) is a collection of 14 images combined as a photographic novella; the portrayal of a failed relationship photographed as staged scenes in the transformed rooms of an old house. These photographs are drawn from my own experiences  - fragments of memories that pierce like blinding sun through window blinds.


I am curious about how couples love one another, hate one another, and how their love decays. With this series, I explore and photograph secret thoughts, passions and incidents, transforming them into a visual representation of epiphanies, misery, desires, and resolutions, with a look to sculptural quality illustrations, Chris Van Allsburg’s surrealistic drawings, and extreme perspective. Heavily symbolic, and at times brutally foreboding, each scene a fleeting fantasy frozen in time or a wounding recollection.

In sequential pieces, each image holds its own story; like forgotten pictures found in an attic. Collectively, they encompass a novella told in still photographs –conflict, climax, and resolution. A third person narrative of the birth and death of a marriage.


Note: Passage for Photo 6 courtesy of M Night Shalaman - "Signs"

A profuse explosion, surging and lush, still untainted

floored

floored

It was like the crawling to retrieve the rolling coins from beneath the feet of strangers on the train. Those moments that fed the detestation

It was like crawling to retrieve the rolling coins from beneath the feet of strangers on the train. Those moments that fed the detestation

She had heard it said that they could smell fear and recalled the notion that closing one's eyes would grant concealment

The apathy grew and spread until it oozed in under the doors, across the floors, and up the walls, where it settled in and administered its anesthesia

Swing away Merrill....swing away

The thought that from this day on, she would use this for nothing but the preservation of pacification simply would not do. In that lied both inevitability and satisfaction

It was on the 7th step that she noticed the key

There was no need for permission to venture through the forbidden forest to a nearby town in order to collect the remedies

What could be gained by divulging the fact that hope was only present when accompanied by fantasies of his travel beyond the point where there be dragons

Appearing all week

From now on, it was going to be such a magnificent, formidable adventure

She was going to listen to that, but then she just carried on living her life

It just wasn't acceptable to go out of the house that way

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