Not forcing a drama where there isn't one. Allowing the moment to be itself. Not over-elaborating. Allowing the space to assert itself, its emptiness if necessary. Yet, are there really instants in which nothing happens? Even an empty room is inhabited by ghosts of past people and events. A blank facial expression may be a facade behind which a hugely important decision is being made. A seemingly barren landscape can create a sense of anticipation, even an air trepidation.
Just as a photographer often has to wait for the 'moment' and, when his/her patience is rewarded, the resultant image seems sometimes to have absorbed that process of waiting...similarly, so called 'instants in which nothing happens' can be precursors to the most dramatic of occurences. The desert seconds before the first atomic bomb was detonated. A huge expanse of perfectly still, empty water out of which a hand or a head, or a dorsal fin suddenly emerges. Seeming utter darkness out of which an eye suddenly catches a thin sliver of light we hadn't even noticed.
Instants in which nothing happens are not about absence but about impending presence. After all, there are times when we only notice the silence at the moment it is broken.