Lens-Artists Challenge #356 – Quiet Hours

Posted on July 13, 2025 by Stupidity Hole

What are quiet hours? Among many things, this can mean an empty space. It can be a sense of stillness; a lack of action; an absence of presence within a frame. Quiet hours are often associated with the time before people are waking up and getting about, but it doesn’t have to be an area framed by darkness. They can be shown in many ways.

Waiting for Interaction

Here there’s a sense of quiet hours through a lack of presence. An area we’d normally associate with action through movement or human presence lacks it. It feels empty and there is no sound.

Quieting Fog

Weather phenomena can create a sense of quiet through isolation. Whilst the effect isn’t strong in this photo, the fog separates the area from some of its surrounds. It creates context for why this area might be quiet; along with the lack of people in the frame, the area is seemingly separated from surrounding space, and so it gains a stillness that suggests silence.

The Morning Drive

Quiet can be implied by what is leaving an area, such as a vehicle driving away from a camera. It’s not quiet now, but it soon will be. This can be a good way to create narrative. There is action, but it’s the action of moving through and away. The area is disturbed, but through suggestion we can accept an implication of quiet following not far behind.

Transmission Under a Darkening Sky

And of course, minimalism works quite well to represent quiet hours. Especially minimalism with open spaces with just the right kind of weather. Without the surrounding area providing context, there’s little to suggest how full of action this space will be. It could see very little human activity at any given time.

There are plenty of ways of showing quiet hours. It doesn’t have to be the absence of action, but it depends on the action. A scene does not need to be devoid of objects or subjects. As such, for the three hundred-and-fifty-sixth Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, I invite you to think about what makes for “Quiet Hours” to you. How do you see it in an image? How do you navigate the idea?

The host of the Lens-Artists challenges cycles weekly between the following people:

Tina

Patti

Ann-Christine aka Leya

This one is curated by me. Next week will be hosted by Egídio.

I recommend joining the community and participating in the challenges. They’re pretty straightforward, allow room for interpretation, and provide a good way to think about photography in general. If not, however, then at the very least you should check out what others submit to the challenges.

I hope you enjoy.

About Stupidity Hole

I'm some guy that does stuff. Hoping to one day fill the internet with enough insane ramblings to impress a cannibal rat ship. I do more than I probably should. I have a page called MS Paint Masterpieces that you may be interested in checking out. I also co-run Culture Eater, an online zine for covering the arts among other things. We're on Patreon!

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