23rd Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Artistic
Silence

“It was summer—tourists passing, cicadas crying—yet this 200-year-old tree spoke only of silence. I made silence my theme: erasing all background but tiles and stone, lifting the tree above the ground. Only later did I learn it had fallen in winter snow.”

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 10.2023
Date Uploaded: 11.2025
Photo Location: Kyoto, Japan
Copyright: © NAOKO TOSA