The Quiet Hours — A New Collection of Still Life Photography

Why I Started Shooting Still Life After Five Years of Streets

For five years, vingtdeuxbis was a street photography brand. Saigon at 3am. Tokyo neon. Hong Kong taxis at intersections. The work was outside, fast, candid, public.

Then I started shooting still life. It happened by accident. I was renting a small apartment in Ho Chi Minh City with a cracked tile floor and a single window that let in light only between 4pm and 6pm. Some afternoons, I'd come home with nothing to photograph outside — too hot, too saturated, too crowded. So I'd put a piece of fruit on a chipped enamel plate and shoot it next to the window.

Those photographs felt different from anything I'd made before. Not better. Different. Slower. The kind of frame you have to compose carefully because nothing in the scene is going to move.

I called the series Quiet Hours because that's what those late afternoons felt like. The city outside was loud. The room was silent. The objects on the table didn't ask anything from me.

The Dutch Master Influence

I'd be lying if I said I invented anything new. Still life photography that uses available daylight, neutral backgrounds, and a single subject is a direct descendant of seventeenth-century Dutch painting. Vermeer. de Heem. Heda.

What's different is the camera's literalism. A painter could remove a flaw. The camera shows the bruise on the apple, the dust on the bottle, the scratch on the silver cup. That literalism is what I love about still life photography. It's a record of the imperfect, made beautiful only by the light.

Each print in Quiet Hours follows the same rules: natural daylight only, single subject or tightly composed group, neutral background, shot in late afternoon when the light is at its softest. This isn't about minimalism. It's about restraint.

The Four Prints

Brown Egg Library: a single brown egg in a silver cup, framed by a row of vintage books. The hardest decision in the composition was how many books to include. Seven was the answer. The shell of the egg has a small crack near the bottom. I almost cropped it out. I didn't, because the crack is what makes the photograph honest.

Raspberries Cream Sunday Dessert: fresh raspberries in cream, scattered across a linen tablecloth. The light is doing most of the work — the cream catches the late afternoon glow, the raspberries glow red against it. I shot this on a Sunday in winter, in twelve minutes, with a single window.

Beet Pickled Eggs Baroque: pickled eggs stained pink-red by beetroot vinegar, on a polished plate next to a crystal glass of beet juice. The most extreme colour palette of the four — saturated pink, deep magenta, against a warm white background. For people who don't want quiet still life. It's still life with volume.

Birthday Cake Candlelit Sunset (Le Gâteau): the signature print. A small birthday cake on a vintage table, candles half-melted, red berries glowing in the warm light. The exact second between celebration and silence. I shot this at golden hour, on a small dining table, with a single set of candles.

Why These Prints Belong in Kitchens and Dining Rooms

Most fine art photography is sold for living rooms. Big, single-statement prints that anchor a sofa wall. Still life photography works differently. The subject — food, kitchen objects, table settings — naturally belongs near where you eat.

When I'm helping someone choose a Quiet Hours print, I usually ask: where do you actually look at art the most? For most of my collectors, the answer is the breakfast table, not the sofa. They spend more conscious wall-time in their kitchen than in any other room. That's the room these prints are made for.

What's Coming Next

The first four Quiet Hours prints are available now. The next batch is in production — three or four more prints, planned for late summer 2026. The series will eventually include around fifteen prints. Use code WELCOME10 for 10% off your first order.

Each print is a limited edition of 30, hand-signed and numbered, with certificate of authenticity. Printed on Hahnemühle Pearl 310gsm archival paper. Available in A4, A3, A2, A1. Free worldwide shipping.