Top 15 'Found Abstract' Urban Textures to try with smartphone
Look around you. No, I mean really look. Past the people, the cars, and the buildings as a whole. Zoom in on the details. The city is a living, breathing canvas, constantly being painted, weathered, and worn down. It’s in these overlooked details that you’ll find a secret world of abstract art, waiting to be captured.
This is the world of "found abstract" photography. It’s about isolating a piece of reality—a patch of peeling paint, a rust stain, a crack in the pavement—and framing it in a way that transforms it. The subject is no longer a "wall" or a "fence"; it becomes a study of color, line, and texture. And the best tool for this urban treasure hunt? It's the one already in your pocket. Your smartphone is discreet, always ready, and perfect for getting up close and personal with these hidden masterpieces.
Forget feeling like you need a big, fancy camera to create compelling images. In this guide, we're diving into 15 incredible urban textures that make for stunning abstract photos. We’ll explore how to see them, how to shoot them, and how to turn the mundane into something magical. Get ready to see your city in a whole new light.
1. Peeling Paint and Flaking Walls
This is the quintessential "found abstract" subject. Layers of paint, cracking and curling away from a surface, reveal a history of color and time. Each chip and flake creates a unique topography, a miniature landscape of decay and beauty. Look for walls where multiple colors are visible, telling a story of past renovations and forgotten aesthetics.
The magic here is in the texture. To capture it with your smartphone, get close—as close as your phone can focus. Use side lighting (when the sun is low in the morning or late afternoon) to cast micro-shadows that make the peeling edges pop. Tap your screen on the most interesting part of the texture to lock focus and exposure, ensuring the detail is tack-sharp. Don’t be afraid to fill the entire frame with the pattern; this helps detach it from its context and elevates it to pure abstraction.
2. Rusted Metal
Rust is nature’s beautiful, chaotic watercolour. On old gates, abandoned cars, corrugated sheets, or forgotten machinery, you'll find an incredible palette of fiery oranges, deep browns, and moody reds. The texture can range from a fine, dusty powder to coarse, bubbling flakes, offering endless photographic possibilities.
When shooting rust, look for the interplay between the rusted areas and the original metal or paint. This contrast creates a powerful visual dynamic. Use your smartphone's exposure control (usually a slider that appears after you tap to focus) to slightly underexpose the shot. This will saturate the deep colours of the rust and prevent the brighter parts from blowing out. These images often look incredible in black and white, too, which emphasizes the gritty, tactile quality of the texture.
3. Cracked Concrete and Asphalt
The ground beneath our feet is a roadmap of stories. Cracks in the pavement spiderweb into fascinating, organic patterns that resemble rivers, lightning, or ancient maps. Sometimes weeds or moss push through, adding a touch of resilient life to the stark, grey canvas. These lines are pure, raw, and full of graphic potential.
To make these cracks stand out, change your perspective. Get low to the ground and shoot almost parallel to the surface. This angle elongates the lines and creates a sense of depth. On a sunny day, the edges of the cracks will cast hard shadows, adding another layer of contrast and definition. Try framing your shot so a dominant crack acts as a leading line, guiding the viewer's eye through the image.
4. Classic Brick Walls
At first glance, a brick wall is just a brick wall. But look closer. The repetitive pattern creates a powerful sense of rhythm and geometry. Each brick has its own unique character—its colour, its texture, its imperfections. The mortar between them creates a grid that can be either a rigid structure or a crumbling frame.
Play with angles here. Shooting a brick wall head-on emphasizes its symmetrical, graphic quality. However, shooting it from a sharp angle creates converging lines that add depth and dynamism. Look for walls with interesting variations: a single painted brick, a section repaired with different mortar, or a splash of graffiti that breaks the pattern. These "interruptions" often make for the most compelling abstract shots.
5. Graffiti (Micro-Details)
Instead of capturing an entire graffiti piece, focus on the details. Zoom in on the texture of the spray paint itself. Capture the way the paint has dripped down the wall, the overspray that creates a soft, hazy edge, or the way new layers of paint partially obscure older ones. This is where you find the energy and motion of the art form.
This is a perfect time to use your smartphone's telephoto lens if it has one. A 2x or 3x zoom allows you to isolate a small section without casting your own shadow on the wall. Look for areas with bold colour contrasts or interesting textural interactions, like spray paint on a brick wall versus a smooth metal door. The close-up view transforms a public statement into a personal, abstract expression.
6. Puddle Reflections
After a rain shower, the city offers up a collection of temporary, distorted mirrors. Puddles reflect the sky, buildings, and streetlights, but in a fractured, painterly way. The slightest ripple on the surface can turn a straightforward reflection into a beautiful impressionistic image. Look for the rainbow sheen of oil on water, which adds a psychedelic swirl of colour.
The trick to shooting puddles is to get your phone as close to the water's surface as possible. This creates a more immersive and surprising perspective. You might even want to flip your phone upside down so the lens is closer to the ground. Tap to focus on the reflection itself, not the bottom of the puddle. Play with what you include; sometimes a small piece of the puddle's edge provides just enough context to ground the abstract reflection.
7. Manhole Covers and Street Grates
Often ignored, these pieces of urban infrastructure are miniature works of industrial design. Manhole covers feature geometric patterns, bold typography, and city insignias, all cast in heavy, weathered metal. Street grates offer repeating lines and patterns that create a fascinating interplay of solid and void, light and shadow.
Shoot these from directly overhead for a flat, graphic, "top-down" perspective. This emphasizes the symmetry and design of the object. Make sure your own shadow isn't in the shot! Wait for a moment when the light is even, like on an overcast day, to capture the metallic texture without harsh glare. In post-processing, increasing the contrast or clarity can really make the embossed details and gritty texture stand out.
8. Tire Tracks
On a dusty construction site, in a muddy alley, or even in a patch of wet sand at an urban beach, tire tracks leave behind a temporary sculpture. The repeating patterns of the tread create strong, rhythmic lines. They tell a story of movement, direction, and force, all pressed into the earth.
Like with cracked pavement, a low angle is your best friend. This accentuates the depth of the tracks and the texture of the material they're pressed into. Side lighting is crucial here; it will rake across the surface and create deep shadows inside the treads, making the pattern pop. Frame your shot to use the tracks as powerful leading lines that sweep across the frame.
9. Weathered Wood
From an old park bench to a splintering fence or a decaying pier, weathered wood is rich with character. The grain tells the story of the tree's life, while the effects of sun and rain add a silvery patina, cracked paint, and deep fissures. It’s a texture that feels both natural and shaped by its urban environment.
Direct, overhead sunlight can be harsh, so look for wood in open shade or shoot on an overcast day to bring out the subtle variations in tone and texture. Get close to capture the fine details of the grain and the splintering fibres. Look for interesting details like old nails, bolts, or peeling varnish that add a point of interest to your abstract composition.
10. Chain-Link Fences
A chain-link fence is a masterclass in geometry, repetition, and perspective. The interlocking wires create a diamond pattern that can be used to frame a background, create a sense of depth, or stand on its own as a graphic subject. The way light hits the galvanized metal can create bright highlights and deep shadows, adding to its visual appeal.
Experiment with your smartphone's focus. You can tap on the fence itself, making it the sharp subject while the background blurs into a soft wash of colour (some phones' "Portrait Mode" can achieve this effect beautifully). Alternatively, you can focus through the fence on a distant object, using the diamond pattern as a textured, out-of-focus frame. The shadows cast by a chain-link fence in the late afternoon sun are also a fantastic abstract subject on their own.
11. Corrugated Metal
Whether on a construction hoarding, a garage door, or the side of a modern building, corrugated metal is all about rhythm and line. The repeating wave-like pattern creates strong vertical or horizontal lines that guide the eye. It’s a fantastic subject for playing with light, as the curved surfaces catch highlights and cast shadows in a predictable yet beautiful way.
Shoot this material from an angle to emphasize the "in-and-out" pattern and create a sense of three-dimensionality. Look for sections that are dented, rusted, or painted, as these imperfections break the monotony and add character. Corrugated metal is especially dramatic in the harsh light of midday or the golden light of late afternoon, as the shadows will be at their most defined.
12. Textured and Rain-Streaked Glass
Windows are not just for looking through; they can be the subject themselves. Frosted or patterned glass, found on bathroom windows or office partitions, blurs the world behind it into a soft, abstract field of colour and shape. Raindrops on a bus window act like tiny lenses, each one holding a miniature, upside-down version of the world outside.
For these shots, your focus is key. With your smartphone, tap directly on the glass surface or a specific raindrop. This will ensure the texture of the glass is sharp while the background remains beautifully blurred. This is a great opportunity to play with colour. A brightly lit neon sign or the red of a stoplight seen through wet or frosted glass can create a stunningly vibrant and moody abstract photograph.
13. Worn-Out Road Markings
The painted lines on our streets—crosswalks, arrows, parking space dividers—are subjected to constant wear and tear. Over time, they fade, crack, and peel, creating beautifully distressed textures. The thick, plastic-like paint chips away to reveal the dark asphalt beneath, resulting in a high-contrast abstract pattern.
These markings are a fantastic subject for creating minimalist compositions. Isolate a single peeling line or the corner of a faded arrow against the uniform texture of the road. I once saw a print by Goh Ling Yong where the entire composition was built around the powerful graphic quality of a single faded crosswalk line, proving how compelling these simple subjects can be. Get directly overhead for a flat, graphic look, and don't be afraid to crop tightly in post-production to perfect your abstract frame.
14. Stained Stone and Marble
The facades of older buildings, stone steps, and public monuments often bear the marks of time and weather. Water stains create dark, flowing patterns down the surface of concrete or stone. The veins in a slab of marble create elegant, organic lines. These natural and man-made imperfections add a layer of history and visual interest to an otherwise uniform surface.
The best light for shooting these textures is often soft and diffused, like on a cloudy day. This prevents harsh glare and allows the subtle variations in colour and tone to come through. Fill your frame with the pattern of the stain or the veins in the marble. Think about the composition—does the stain create a leading line? Do the veins swirl in a pleasing way? Look for the art within the material.
15. Metal Grilles and Industrial Vents
Look for the repeating patterns of air conditioning vents, sewer grates, or decorative metalwork on buildings. These subjects offer a feast of geometric shapes—circles, squares, lines, and honeycombs. They create a powerful sense of order and industrial aesthetic, and the space between the metal creates a fascinating interplay of light and shadow.
These are excellent subjects for high-contrast black and white photography. The strong lines and shapes are emphasized when you remove colour. Try to shoot them when the sun is creating long shadows, which adds a sense of depth and dimension. Get close and fill the frame with the pattern to create a dizzying, hypnotic abstract image that challenges the viewer's sense of scale.
Your City is Your Canvas
The world is filled with extraordinary beauty hidden in the most ordinary places. All it takes to find it is a shift in perspective. By training your eye to see textures, patterns, and details, you unlock an infinite supply of photographic subjects right at your doorstep. Your smartphone is the perfect sketchpad for capturing these fleeting moments of "found abstract" art.
So, the next time you're walking down the street, slow down. Look down at the pavement, look closely at the walls, and notice the textures you’ve walked past a thousand times before. Your next great photograph might be hiding in a patch of rust or a crack in the concrete.
Now it's your turn. What are your favourite urban textures to photograph? Go out and capture your own abstract cityscapes and share them on Instagram. Tag us in your posts—we can't wait to see the hidden beauty you discover
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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