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Quiet Landscape: Beauty, Stillness, and Connection turns away from spectacle and toward the slower qualities of place: atmosphere, silence, light, distance, and the details that become visible when the landscape is given time. Organized by PhotoPlace Gallery in Middlebury, Vermont, the juried call welcomes work from photographers aged 18 or over, with submissions closing on September 7, 2026.
The theme is deliberately broad. Sweeping natural vistas can sit alongside cultivated land, rural environments, urban edges, intimate details, and less literal responses to place. Traditional, documentary, conceptual, and fine art approaches are all eligible. What connects them is a quieter reading of the landscape: images that encourage viewers to pause and notice relationships between place, time, light, and presence. For photographers comparing Deartline’s photo contest deadlines, this call combines a focused landscape brief with both physical and permanent online presentation.
Juror Kat Kiernan will select up to 35 photographs for exhibition at PhotoPlace Gallery and approximately 40 additional works for the Online Gallery. Every selected photograph will appear in the exhibition catalogue, remain permanently archived on the gallery website, and receive promotion through PhotoPlace Gallery’s social media. The entry fee is $39 for the first five images and $6 for each additional photograph, with no limit on the total number submitted.
Prizes
The principal outcome is selection for exhibition and publication, with additional distinctions available among the chosen photographs.
- Exhibition Gallery selections: Up to 35 photographs will be chosen for physical exhibition at PhotoPlace Gallery in Middlebury, Vermont.
- Online Gallery selections: Approximately 40 additional photographs will be presented in the gallery’s online exhibition.
- All selected artists: Work will be reproduced in the exhibition catalogue, permanently archived on the PhotoPlace Gallery website, and promoted through the gallery’s social media channels with links to photographers’ websites where available.
- Juror’s Award: A special distinction selected by juror Kat Kiernan.
- Director’s Award: A separate distinction selected by the gallery director.
- Honorable Mention: Additional recognition may be given to selected photographs.
Online Gallery selections receive the same catalogue inclusion, permanent website presence, and promotional support as works chosen for the physical exhibition.
Related Photo Contests
Categories or Themes
There are no separate competition categories. All submissions respond to the central theme of the quiet landscape.
The Quiet Landscape: Beauty, Stillness, and Connection by PhotoPlace Gallery encompasses natural, rural, urban, and cultivated environments. Photographs may address solitude, changing seasons, atmosphere, stillness, subtle human traces, or the relationship between people and place. Expansive views are welcome, but so are close observations and fragments that suggest a larger environment without describing it completely.
The brief places the call firmly within landscape photography competitions, while leaving enough space for more personal or interpretive treatments of the subject.
Dates and Entry Fees
The schedule moves from an August opening to September jurying, followed by the physical exhibition in Vermont during November.
| Call for Entry Opens | August 8, 2026 |
| Submission Deadline | September 7, 2026 |
| Juror Selections Announced | September 21, 2026 |
| Print Deadline for Exhibition Gallery selections | October 23, 2026 |
| Exhibition | November 6–28, 2026 |
| Opening Reception | November 6, 2026 |
Entry fees:
- First 5 images: $39.
- Each additional image: $6.
Additional photographs can be added to an existing submission before the deadline, although images already submitted cannot be deleted or replaced.
How to Enter
Entries are submitted through PhotoPlace Gallery’s online system. First-time entrants create an account, while returning photographers can use their existing profile.
Files must be JPG or JPEG, with a maximum size of 5MB. Images should be approximately 2,100 pixels on the longest side, with 300ppi and sRGB recommended. Watermarks and signatures should be avoided. Diptychs and triptychs must be assembled into a single file before upload.
About the Jury
Kat Kiernan is an artist and writer based in Brooklyn, New York. Her photographic work explores themes including womanhood, mythology, and uncertainty, and has appeared in solo and group exhibitions across the United States.
She is Manager of Public Programs at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City and previously founded and served as Editor-in-Chief of the photography magazine Don’t Take Pictures from 2013 to 2021. Her writing on photography has appeared in publications and books including Photograph, Art New England, Feature Shoot, and The Artist as Culture Producer.
PhotoPlace Gallery uses a blind jury process. Artist names and identifying file information are removed before the juror reviews the work.
Why Enter Quiet Landscape: Beauty, Stillness, and Connection?
Up to 35 photographs enter the physical exhibition in Vermont, while roughly 40 additional works receive the same catalogue inclusion, permanent website archive, and promotional treatment. That expands the number of photographers whose work becomes part of the final curated project without erasing the distinction of the gallery exhibition itself.
Another advantage is the permanence of the online presentation. Selected work does not disappear when the November exhibition closes, it remains on the PhotoPlace Gallery website as part of the gallery archive. For photographers building a record of juried exhibitions, that creates a lasting public reference alongside the printed catalogue and social media promotion.
The theme is also focused without being restrictive. A photographer does not need to work exclusively in conventional wilderness imagery to fit the brief. Urban spaces, cultivated landscapes, documentary observations, intimate details, and more interpretive work can all respond to the idea of quietness and connection. Among Deartline’s current photography competitions, Quiet Landscape is particularly relevant to photographers looking for a curated gallery context where subtlety, atmosphere, and a personal sense of place can carry the image.
Rules and Copyright
If you are interested in participating in the Quiet Landscape: Beauty, Stillness, and Connection by PhotoPlace Gallery we suggest you review the complete rules provided by the contest.
Rules
- Photographers must be 18 or older.
- International submissions are accepted.
- Traditional and alternative photographic processes, mixed media incorporating photography, artist books, sculptural work, and other non-traditional photographic presentations may be eligible unless the individual call states otherwise.
- Fully AI-generated images are not eligible. Submitted work must originate through photographic processes, although AI-assisted editing tools may form part of normal post-production.
- Entrants must own the rights to the images they submit and accept responsibility for their content.
- Work accepted into a previous PhotoPlace Gallery exhibition may not be resubmitted for three years from that exhibition’s opening date.
Copyright and Image Usage
Photographers retain all rights to their images. If selected, they grant PhotoPlace Gallery permission to display the work on its website and social media, reproduce it in the exhibition catalogue, and use it with credit when promoting exhibitions.
The gallery does not use selected images for unrelated purposes without permission and does not transfer ownership of the photographs.
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For more information and to participate in the contest, visit: the official website.
