Top 17 'Urban-Rewilding' Photography Prompts to try in Your City's Forgotten Corners in 2025 - Goh Ling Yong
Look around you. In the cracks of the pavement, along the forgotten brick walls of an alleyway, or framing the rusted chain-link fence of a vacant lot, a quiet, beautiful battle is being waged. Nature, ever-persistent, is slowly and steadily reclaiming our concrete jungles. This phenomenon, known as 'urban rewilding,' is more than just weeds and decay; it's a story of resilience, adaptation, and unexpected beauty.
For photographers, these forgotten corners are not eyesores but treasure troves of creative potential. They offer a chance to move beyond the grand cityscapes and polished architecture to capture something more intimate and profound: the intricate dance between the man-made and the wild. It’s a genre that blends macro, landscape, and street photography into a compelling narrative about time, neglect, and rebirth.
As we head into 2025, it’s the perfect time to refresh our creative vision and challenge ourselves to see our cities differently. This list of 17 urban rewilding photography prompts is designed to do just that. It’s a guide to help you explore the overlooked nooks and crannies of your own neighbourhood, armed with a camera and a new perspective.
1. The Pavement Pioneer
This is the quintessential urban rewilding shot. It’s the single, defiant dandelion, tuft of grass, or resilient moss forcing its way through a crack in the asphalt or concrete. This tiny subject tells a massive story of life's tenacity. It’s a symbol of hope and strength in the harshest of environments. Your job is to elevate this small miracle into a powerful photograph.
To capture it effectively, you need to change your perspective—literally. Get down low, at ground level, to make your small subject the hero of the frame. This low angle emphasizes its struggle and victory over the monolithic pavement. Use a wide aperture (like f/2.8 or lower) to blur the background, isolating the plant and making it pop.
Consider the context and contrast. The juxtaposition of the soft, organic plant against the hard, geometric lines of the pavement is the core of the image. Look for interesting cracks that act as leading lines, drawing the viewer's eye directly to your subject. Shooting after a fresh rain can be magical, as the dark, reflective pavement adds mood and makes the green of the plant appear even more vibrant.
2. The Vertical Garden
Look up from the pavement and you'll find entire ecosystems climbing the walls around you. Ivy, creeping vines, and tenacious mosses create 'vertical gardens' on brick, stone, and concrete surfaces. These aren't just plants on a wall; they are living tapestries of texture, pattern, and colour that change with the seasons.
Focus on the details. Frame a shot where the intricate network of ivy stems contrasts with the uniform grid of brickwork. Look for sections where the greenery has engulfed a window, a sign, or a drainpipe, showing a direct interaction between nature and structure. This narrative element adds depth to your photo, telling a story of gradual conquest.
Lighting is crucial here. An overcast day provides soft, even light that’s perfect for capturing the rich textures without harsh shadows. Alternatively, late afternoon 'golden hour' light can rake across the wall, highlighting the three-dimensional quality of the leaves and creating a beautiful, warm glow. Don't be afraid to experiment with black and white to emphasize the patterns and textures alone.
3. Rust and Roots
There is a unique and melancholic beauty in the combination of rusting metal and encroaching plant life. Think of tree roots wrapping around an old iron fence, or delicate ferns sprouting from the chassis of an abandoned vehicle. This prompt is about capturing the stunning colour palette and textures born from decay and new growth.
The warm, earthy tones of rust—from fiery orange to deep maroon—create a spectacular backdrop for the vibrant greens and yellows of plants. Use a macro lens or your phone's macro mode to get close and capture the fine details: the flaking texture of the rust, the delicate veins of a leaf, and the precise point where the two meet.
This is a great opportunity to practice your colour theory. Look for complementary colours. The orange of the rust and the green of the foliage are a classic, powerful combination. Frame your shot to balance these elements. For example, a tight shot on a single green leaf resting on a sea of textured rust can be incredibly impactful.
4. Ghost Signs and Greenery
In older parts of any city, you can find 'ghost signs'—faded, hand-painted advertisements on the sides of brick buildings. They are relics of a bygone era, and they become even more poignant when nature begins to interact with them. A creeping vine obscuring a 1950s Coca-Cola ad tells a powerful story about the passage of time.
Your goal is to capture the relationship between the fading human message and the persistent growth of nature. Frame your shot to show both elements clearly. You might capture a wide view showing the entire sign being slowly framed by ivy, or a tighter detail shot where a single tendril is crawling across a faded word.
Patience and observation are key. Visit the location at different times of the day to see how the light interacts with the wall. Sometimes, the low angle of morning or evening sun will reveal the faded paint more clearly. This prompt is less about a single moment and more about documenting a slow, ongoing conversation between history and nature.
5. Water's Edge Reclaimed
Urban waterways—forgotten canals, industrial riverbanks, or even concrete drainage channels—are often hotspots for rewilding. Here, nature’s comeback is accelerated by the constant presence of water. You'll find reeds, wildflowers, and even small trees thriving in places that were once purely functional and industrial.
Reflections are your best friend for this prompt. Use the water's surface to create a mirror image of the rewilding scene, adding a layer of symmetry and surreal beauty to your composition. Look for moments where the reflection captures both the wild growth and a piece of the urban environment, like a bridge or a graffiti-covered wall.
Pay attention to the transition line between the man-made edge (concrete or stone) and the wild growth. This is where the story is. A shot that shows reeds pushing up through gaps in a concrete embankment is a perfect example of this theme. Experiment with long exposures to smooth the water, creating a dreamy, ethereal contrast to the gritty urban setting.
6. The Lone Survivor Tree
In the dense urban environment, a single, mature tree growing in an unlikely spot is a powerful subject. It could be a tree that has grown for decades in a tiny, enclosed courtyard, one that has forced its way through a building's foundation, or one standing alone in a vast, empty industrial lot. This tree is a monument to survival.
The key to this shot is isolation. Use negative space to emphasize the tree's solitude. Frame it against a stark brick wall, a wide-open (and perhaps grey) sky, or the empty expanse of an asphalt lot. This makes the tree feel more significant and heroic. Try converting the image to black and white to focus on its form, texture, and resilience.
Consider its story. How did it get there? How has it survived? Look for details that tell this story: roots that have buckled the pavement around its base, or branches that have grown in unusual shapes to reach for sunlight around an adjacent building. Capturing these details adds narrative weight to your photograph.
7. An Insect's Metropolis
Urban rewilding isn't just about plants; it's also about the return of fauna. The overgrown corners of a city are teeming with life, creating a miniature metropolis for insects, spiders, and other tiny creatures. This prompt challenges you to put on your macro lens and document this hidden world.
Look for spiderwebs beaded with morning dew, stretched between the bars of a fence. Find ladybugs crawling on the leaves of a weed, or bees pollinating the wildflowers that have sprung up in a neglected park. These tiny scenes offer a universe of photographic potential and remind us that these ecosystems, however small, are vibrant and complete.
This is technical photography at its most rewarding. You'll need patience and a steady hand. A tripod can be invaluable. Focus stacking—taking multiple photos at different focus points and merging them—can help you get an image that is sharp from front to back. But even with a simple smartphone, you can get surprisingly close and capture incredible details if you have good light and hold still.
8. Fungi on the Fringe
Where there is decay, there is often fungi. In the damp, shaded corners of the city—along rotting wooden fences, in mulchy patches beneath trees, or in dark alleyways—mushrooms and other fungi present a world of alien shapes, colours, and textures. They are the great recyclers of the natural world, breaking down the old to make way for the new.
Get as low as you can. Many of the most interesting fungi grow close to the ground. A small tripod or even a beanbag can help you stabilize your camera for a sharp, low-angle shot. Use a flashlight or your phone's light to 'paint' your subject from the side, which will bring out its delicate textures and intricate shapes.
Pay attention to the environment. The story is not just the mushroom itself, but where it's growing. A cluster of bright orange fungi on a blackened, rotting log in an urban park tells a more complete story of life and decay. Look for the contrast between the soft, fleshy texture of the mushroom and the hard, decaying surface it's growing from.
9. Window to a Wild World
Abandoned buildings are a focal point for urban explorers, but you don't need to go inside to capture their rewilding story. A broken window, with plants from the interior growing out towards the light, is an incredibly poetic and powerful image. It's literally a window into a world where nature has taken over.
This is a perfect opportunity to use the 'frame within a frame' composition technique. Use the window frame itself to frame the shot of the greenery inside. This adds depth and context, immediately telling the viewer that they are looking from the outside in. Try to capture some of the building's exterior—peeling paint, crumbling brick—to complete the story of neglect.
The light is often challenging but rewarding. You are typically shooting from a bright exterior into a dark interior. Use your camera's spot metering to expose for the plants inside, which may blow out the highlights of the exterior wall, but will ensure your subject is perfectly lit. This high-contrast effect can be very dramatic.
10. The Accidental Meadow
Sometimes, the most beautiful examples of urban rewilding happen when a space is simply left alone. A vacant lot, a neglected strip of parkland, or a disused roundabout can transform into an 'accidental meadow,' bursting with a chaotic and beautiful mix of grasses and native wildflowers.
Instead of trying to capture the whole meadow in one grand shot, focus on smaller 'vignettes' within it. Find a cluster of particularly vibrant flowers and use a shallow depth of field to isolate them from the busy background. Or, get low and shoot through the grasses and flowers to create a soft, dreamy foreground that adds depth to your image.
Visit during golden hour. The low, warm light will make the meadow glow, backlighting the delicate seed heads of grasses and making the colours of the flowers pop. This is also a great place to look for insects, combining this prompt with the 'Insect's Metropolis' for a two-in-one photo opportunity.
11. Rooftop Sanctuaries
Often hidden from street-level view, neglected rooftops can become unique, high-altitude ecosystems. Over time, wind-blown seeds and dirt accumulate, creating shallow soil where resilient mosses, grasses, and even small, hardy shrubs can take root. Capturing these rooftop sanctuaries offers a fresh and surprising perspective on the city.
Access can be the biggest challenge, so always prioritize safety and never trespass. You can often get great views from an adjacent, taller building (with permission), a public viewpoint, or even using a drone if local regulations permit. Look for rooftops that show a clear contrast between the man-made structure (vents, tiles, gravel) and the wild green patches.
The best shots often include a piece of the surrounding cityscape in the background. A photo of a small, windswept patch of wildflowers on a rooftop, with skyscrapers looming behind it, is a powerful visual metaphor for the persistence of nature in the heart of modern civilization.
12. Stairway to Nowhere
Forgotten staircases, whether they lead up a steep embankment or down to a disused underpass, are magnets for rewilding. As nature reclaims them, the hard, geometric lines of the steps are softened and broken by encroaching grass, moss, and vines, creating a scene straight out of a fairy tale.
These staircases are a gift for composition. Use the stairs themselves as powerful leading lines, drawing the viewer's eye up or down through the frame. Experiment with your position. A shot from the bottom looking up can make the staircase seem grand and imposing, while a view from the top looking down can create a sense of mystery about where it leads.
Pay attention to the details where the plants are actively breaking through the concrete. A shot focused on a single step, with a tuft of grass growing from a crack and a line of moss along the riser, can be just as powerful as a wide shot of the entire structure. The story is in the small victories.
13. Light Through the Leaves
This prompt is all about mastering light. Find a location where rewilding plants are growing in a partially enclosed urban space—an overgrown alleyway, a covered passage, or beneath a bridge. The goal is to capture the way sunlight filters through the leaves, creating dramatic shafts of light and deep shadows.
This is often called 'dappled light,' and it can create a magical, almost cathedral-like atmosphere. The best time for this is usually mid-morning or late afternoon when the sun is at an angle. Look for 'god rays' or beams of light cutting through the space, often made more visible by dust or moisture in the air.
Expose for the highlights. This means you should set your camera's exposure so that the brightest parts of the image (the sunlit leaves or the beams of light) are correctly exposed. This will plunge the surrounding areas into deep shadow, creating a high-contrast, moody, and very dramatic image that emphasizes the beauty of the light itself.
14. Avian Architects
Don't forget to look for the animal life that makes its home in these rewilding spaces. Birds are incredibly resourceful and will build nests in the most surprising urban locations: inside a broken traffic light, on the letter of a building's sign, in a hole in a brick wall, or tucked into the steel girders of a bridge.
A telephoto lens is your best friend here, as you need to capture the subject from a distance to avoid disturbing the birds. Be respectful and ethical; never get so close that you cause stress to the parents or chicks. The goal is to document their ingenious adaptation to the urban environment.
Frame the shot to include the surrounding urban context. A photo of just a nest isn't as interesting as a photo of a nest in a traffic light. That context is what tells the story. Be patient and wait for a moment when a parent bird is arriving or leaving the nest to add a dynamic element to your shot.
15. The After-Rain Reflection
A city transformed by rain offers a fresh canvas for urban rewilding photography. Puddles in cracked pavement, on sidewalks, or in alleyways become temporary mirrors, offering a unique opportunity to capture a double-sided world.
Find a puddle that reflects both a rewilding element (like a weed-covered wall or a plant growing from a crack) and a piece of the urban structure (a building, a lamp post, or power lines). Get your camera as low to the ground as possible to maximize the reflection and create a sense of depth.
Experiment with your focus. You can focus on the real-world subject, leaving the reflection slightly soft, or focus on the reflection itself for a more abstract and disorienting image. The moments just as the rain stops, when the sky is dramatic and the pavement is dark and glossy, are absolutely perfect for this prompt.
16. Industrial Flora
Abandoned industrial sites and old railway lines are prime locations for rewilding on a grand scale. The juxtaposition of massive, rusting machinery and delicate, determined plant life is visually stunning. This is where you can capture the raw power of nature's ability to dismantle and reclaim our most imposing creations.
When I, Goh Ling Yong, was working on a personal project documenting the old Tanjong Pagar railway line in Singapore before it was redeveloped, I was struck by this most. The image of vibrant ginger flowers growing right beside the heavy, rusted steel rails was a perfect summary of the entire theme. Look for these specific points of interaction: vines wrapping around a gear, a small tree sprouting from the bed of a forgotten truck, or moss covering a control panel.
Safety is paramount in these locations. Be aware of your surroundings, wear sturdy shoes, and never enter structurally unsound buildings. Focus on compositions that highlight the scale contrast—a tiny, delicate flower against a massive piece of machinery creates a powerful and thought-provoking image.
17. Shadow Play
Sometimes, the most interesting subject isn't the plant itself, but the shadow it casts. On a sunny day, the foliage of rewilding plants can cast beautiful, intricate, and often abstract patterns on the flat surfaces of the city, like a blank brick wall or a smooth patch of pavement.
This prompt is an exercise in seeing the world in terms of light, shadow, and form. Look for moments when the sun is at a low angle, creating long, dramatic shadows. The sharp, delicate shadow of a fern against a rough concrete wall can be a beautiful minimalist photograph.
Experiment with your composition to emphasize the shadow. You might frame the shot so that only the shadow is visible, creating a mysterious and abstract image. Or, you could include a small part of the plant itself at the edge of the frame to provide context. Converting to black and white is a fantastic way to enhance the graphic quality of these shadow patterns, removing the distraction of colour and focusing solely on the interplay of light and dark.
Start Your Urban Rewilding Adventure
The beauty of urban rewilding photography is that it's accessible to everyone, everywhere. You don't need to travel to a national park or an exotic location. The subjects are waiting for you in the alley behind your apartment, on your walk to the subway, or in that vacant lot you pass every day. It’s a call to slow down, look closer, and appreciate the resilient beauty that thrives in the most unexpected of places.
So, for 2025, I challenge you to pick a few of these prompts and go on a photographic treasure hunt in your own city. Let them guide your eye and spark your creativity. You'll not only return with unique and compelling images but also with a deeper connection to and appreciation for the place you call home.
I’d love to see what you create! Share your best urban rewilding photos on Instagram using the hashtag #UrbanRewildingGLY and be sure to tag my account so I can see and share your work. Which prompt are you most excited to try first? Let me know in the comments below
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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