Top 19 'Urban-Canvas' Street Photography Techniques to practice with Your Smartphone on Your Daily Commute - Goh Ling Yong
That monotonous daily grind—the same bus stop, the same train car, the same sea of faces buried in their phones. We've all been there. It's easy to see the daily commute as dead time, a necessary but uninspiring void between home and work. But what if I told you that this daily ritual is actually a golden opportunity? What if that familiar, boring route is secretly a dynamic, ever-changing 'Urban-Canvas' just waiting for an artist?
The truth is, your daily commute is a street photography playground. It’s a real-time documentary of city life, filled with fleeting moments, dramatic light, and untold stories. And the best part? The only tool you need is already in your pocket. Your smartphone is a powerful, discreet, and surprisingly capable camera, perfect for capturing the raw energy of the streets without drawing a ton of attention.
In this guide, we’re going to transform your journey from a chore into a creative exercise. We'll explore 19 practical street photography techniques you can start using today on your way to work or back home. Forget the bulky DSLR for now; it’s time to see what your smartphone can really do.
1. Hunt for Reflections in Urban Mirrors
Our cities are filled with reflective surfaces that act as natural mirrors, offering a chance to create surreal, layered images. Think beyond puddles and shop windows. Look for reflections in polished granite walls, the side of a glossy bus, rain-slicked pavement, or even a pair of sunglasses on the person sitting opposite you.
These reflections can add a second story to your image, blending two different scenes into one compelling frame. They create depth and complexity, turning a simple shot into a piece of abstract art. The key is to train your eye to see them everywhere.
Pro-Tip: Experiment with your focus. Tap your screen to focus on the reflection itself for a clear image of the mirrored world, or focus on the surface (like water droplets on a window) to create a dreamy, layered effect with the reflection blurred in the background.
2. Master the "Puddlegram"
A direct descendant of hunting for reflections, the "puddlegram" is a classic street photography shot for a reason. After a rain shower, the city is reborn. Puddles become perfect, temporary portals to an upside-down world, reflecting buildings, streetlights, and the sky with stunning clarity.
To get the best puddlegram, you need to change your perspective. Get low—I mean really low. Hold your smartphone just above the water's surface, sometimes even flipping it upside down so the lens is as close to the water as possible. This angle minimizes the real world in the frame and maximizes the reflection, creating a disorienting and beautiful image.
Pro-Tip: Look for puddles that reflect something interesting—a colourful neon sign, a famous landmark, or a person walking by. The moment their reflection steps into the frame is your "decisive moment."
3. Chase the Elusive Shadow
The light during commute hours—early morning and late afternoon—is a gift to photographers. The low sun creates long, dramatic shadows that stretch across sidewalks and crawl up buildings. These shadows are not just voids of light; they are subjects in their own right.
Look for the interesting shapes that shadows create. A person's elongated silhouette can add a sense of mystery or loneliness to a photo. The repeating pattern of shadows from a fence can act as a powerful graphic element. Sometimes, the shadow is more compelling than the object or person casting it.
Pro-Tip: Use your smartphone's exposure lock. Tap and hold on a bright part of the scene, then drag your finger down to decrease the exposure. This will make your shadows deep, dark, and rich, emphasizing their form and making the highlights pop.
4. Use Leading Lines to Guide the Eye
Leading lines are one of the most fundamental composition techniques in photography. They are natural lines within your frame—like roads, railway tracks, painted lines on the pavement, or the edge of a building—that lead the viewer's eye towards your subject.
On your commute, you are surrounded by them. The yellow lines on a train platform, the handrails of an escalator, the converging lines of a long hallway in a subway station—they are all powerful tools for creating a sense of depth and drawing attention to a specific point of interest.
Pro-Tip: Position yourself so these lines start at the bottom corner of your frame and travel inwards. This creates a more dynamic and engaging path for the eye to follow. Don't just see the line; see where it's taking you.
5. Frame Your Subject Within a Frame
This classic technique, known as "framing," involves using elements in the foreground to create a natural border around your subject. This adds context, depth, and a voyeuristic quality to your photograph, as if the viewer is peeking into a scene.
Your commute offers endless framing opportunities. Shoot through a train or bus window to frame the world outside. Use a doorway, an archway in a station, or the gap between two people's heads to frame a distant subject. Even the frame of your own phone can be used creatively!
Pro-Tip: Using a frame often creates a dark foreground. Tap on your main subject in the background to ensure they are properly exposed, which will naturally silhouette the frame and make your subject stand out even more.
6. Create Striking Silhouettes
A silhouette is created when you photograph a subject against a much brighter background, causing the subject to appear as a solid dark shape. This technique is perfect for the "golden hours" of sunrise and sunset that often coincide with your travel times.
To capture a great silhouette, position your subject (a person, a statue, a bicycle) in front of the brightest part of the sky. Then, instead of letting your phone's camera try to brighten the subject, manually underexpose the shot. Tap on the bright sky to set the exposure, and watch your subject transform into a dramatic, graphic shape.
Pro-Tip: The key to a strong silhouette is a clean, recognizable shape. A profile of a person's face or the full figure of someone walking is more effective than a person facing you directly, which can look like an uninteresting blob.
7. Isolate with Negative Space
Negative space is the "empty" area around your subject. Far from being wasted space, it's a powerful compositional tool that helps your subject breathe and stand out. In the chaos of a busy city, finding and using negative space can bring a sense of calm and focus to your images.
Look for large, simple backgrounds: a clean brick wall, a wide-open sky between buildings, a vast stretch of empty pavement. By placing a small subject—like a lone pedestrian—against this large, empty backdrop, you instantly create a sense of scale and isolation, making for a very powerful minimalist photo.
Pro-Tip: After you take the shot, try cropping it in different ways. You'll be surprised how a slightly different crop that emphasizes the negative space can completely change the mood and impact of the photograph.
8. Find Unexpected Juxtaposition
Street photography often thrives on juxtaposition—placing two or more contrasting elements together in a single frame to create a new, often ironic or humorous, meaning. Your commute is a hotbed of these happy accidents.
Keep an eye out for contrasts. It could be an old, historic building next to a modern glass skyscraper; a person running to catch a bus next to a sign that says "Relax"; a perfectly tailored businessperson eating a messy hotdog; or a tiny dog walking a huge person. These moments tell a story and make the viewer think.
Pro-Tip: This technique requires patience and a bit of luck. The key is to notice a potential backdrop—like a funny billboard or an interesting piece of graffiti—and then wait for the right "character" to walk into your scene to complete the story.
9. Shoot from the Hip for Candid Moments
Sometimes, the act of raising a phone to your eye can change the scene in front of you. People become self-conscious or alter their behavior. To capture truly authentic, candid moments, try shooting "from the hip."
This means holding your phone at waist level or chest level and taking photos without looking at the screen. It feels strange at first, and many of your shots will be poorly framed. But you'll also capture people in their natural element—lost in thought, laughing with a friend, or rushing through the station, completely unaware of your camera.
Pro-Tip: Use your phone's volume buttons as a shutter button. This is much more discreet and easier to press without looking than tapping the screen. Embrace the imperfections; the slightly skewed angles can add to the raw, spontaneous feel of the image.
10. Focus on Details and Textures
While street photography often focuses on people and grand scenes, don't forget the small details that give a city its character. The commute is a great time to zoom in on the textures and micro-landscapes that most people ignore.
Look for peeling paint on a bench, the intricate rust patterns on a metal beam, the worn-out texture of a leather seat on the train, a discarded newspaper with a compelling headline, or the way rain beads on a glass window. These close-up shots can be incredibly evocative and tell a story of their own about the life and decay of the urban environment.
Pro-Tip: Use your smartphone's macro mode if it has one, or simply get as close as you can and tap the screen to lock focus. Good lighting is key for texture shots; a sliver of side light will make every bump and crevice stand out.
11. Play with Motion Blur
The city is constantly in motion, and your commute is the epicenter of this energy. Instead of trying to freeze everything, embrace the blur. There are two main ways to do this: panning and capturing light trails.
For panning, pick a moving subject (a cyclist, a running person, a car) and follow it with your phone, pressing the shutter as you move. If you match their speed, the subject will be relatively sharp while the background blurs into streaks of motion. For light trails on a dark evening commute, find a safe spot, hold your phone very still (or use a "long exposure" mode in an app), and capture the streams of light from bus and car headlights.
Pro-Tip: Panning takes practice! Start with subjects that are moving at a predictable speed, like a bus pulling away from a stop. The goal is a smooth, horizontal movement. Don't stop moving the phone the moment you press the shutter; follow through with the motion.
12. Anticipate the "Decisive Moment"
The "Decisive Moment" is a term coined by the legendary photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. It refers to capturing a fleeting, spontaneous event at its most significant and ephemeral peak. It's the moment someone jumps over a puddle, the instant two people's hands touch, or the second a flock of pigeons takes flight in perfect unison.
This is less about camera settings and more about observation and anticipation. As Goh Ling Yong often teaches in his workshops, photography is about seeing what's about to happen. Watch people's interactions. See the child about to blow a bubble. Notice the puddle and the person approaching it. Be ready for the moment before it happens.
Pro-Tip: Use your phone's burst mode. When you anticipate a moment, hold down the shutter button. This will take a rapid series of photos, increasing your chances of capturing that one perfect, split-second frame.
13. Exaggerate with Scale
The urban environment is a place of extreme contrasts in scale. You have tiny human beings set against monumental architecture. Using your smartphone to emphasize this difference can create awe-inspiring and powerful images.
To do this, find a large, impressive background like a towering skyscraper, a massive bridge, or a huge mural. Then, position a person as a small element within that frame. This not only shows the massive scale of the structure but can also evoke feelings of solitude or being a small part of a much larger world.
Pro-Tip: Use your phone's wide-angle or ultra-wide-angle lens. This will allow you to get close to your foreground subject (if you have one) while also capturing the vastness of the background, exaggerating the sense of scale.
14. Find Symmetry and Patterns
Our brains are naturally drawn to symmetry and patterns. They create a sense of order, harmony, and visual pleasure. The man-made world of your commute is absolutely packed with them.
Look for repeating elements: a row of identical windows on a building, the tiles on a subway station wall, the structure of a bridge, or the seats on an empty bus. Symmetrical compositions, where both halves of the image mirror each other, can be incredibly strong. Find the center point and align your shot perfectly.
Pro-Tip: Turn on the gridlines in your camera app. This is a lifesaver for aligning symmetrical shots and ensuring your patterns are perfectly straight. A slightly crooked pattern can be jarring, but a perfectly aligned one is deeply satisfying.
15. Harness "Bad" Weather
Many people put their cameras away when the weather turns, but for a street photographer, "bad" weather is a gift. Rain, fog, and snow completely transform the urban landscape, creating mood and atmosphere that you just can't get on a sunny day.
Rain creates those beautiful reflections and forces people to bring out colourful umbrellas, which add fantastic pops of colour to a grey scene. Fog adds a sense of mystery and simplifies a chaotic background, isolating your subjects. Snow blankets the city in a clean, quiet layer, muffling sound and creating a magical, minimalist canvas.
Pro-Tip: Protect your phone! While many modern smartphones have some water resistance, it's wise to be careful. Shoot from under an awning or inside a bus shelter. A simple plastic sandwich bag can also be a lifesaver in a downpour.
16. Shoot Through Obscuring Layers
Shooting through an object in the foreground can add context, texture, and a sense of place to your photos. It makes the viewer feel like they are right there with you, peering into the scene.
On your commute, the opportunities are endless. Shoot through a rain-streaked bus window to capture the blurred, impressionistic city outside. Use a chain-link fence to add a gritty, urban texture. Photograph a scene through the gaps in a crowd of people to create a sense of energy and immersion. These layers add visual interest and complexity.
Pro-Tip: Tap to focus on the distant subject, not the foreground layer. This will keep your main point of interest sharp while the "through" element (the window, the fence) remains slightly out of focus, framing the scene without being distracting.
17. Tell a Story with Three Layers
A truly compelling street photograph often contains multiple stories or elements working together. A great way to practice this is by thinking in three layers: foreground, mid-ground, and background.
Try to compose a shot that has a point of interest in each of these zones. For example, your foreground might be a person's hand holding a coffee cup, the mid-ground could be the person they are talking to across the table, and the background might be the bustling café or station behind them. This technique creates a rich, three-dimensional scene that pulls the viewer in.
Pro-Tip: This is one of the more advanced street photography techniques and requires you to slow down and observe a scene before shooting. Don't just look for a single subject; look for a whole environment and how the different parts relate to each other.
18. The Commuter's Portrait (Respectfully)
The faces on your commute tell a thousand stories—fatigue, joy, boredom, anticipation. Capturing a street portrait can be one of the most rewarding types of photography. However, it's also one that requires the most respect and discretion.
Using a smartphone is a huge advantage here as it's far less intimidating than a large camera. Look for people who are absorbed in their own world—reading a book, listening to music, or gazing out the window. These are the moments when you can capture a person's genuine, unguarded expression.
Pro-Tip: Be ethical. In most public places it's legal to take photos, but it's important to be respectful. If someone notices you and looks uncomfortable, give them a smile and a nod, and put your phone away. Never use a flash. The goal is to be an invisible observer, not an intruder. I've found that a quick, confident shot followed by moving on is often the best approach.
19. Look Up, Look Down
We spend most of our lives looking straight ahead. By simply changing your camera's perspective—pointing it straight up or straight down—you can reveal a hidden world and create truly unique photographs that most people would walk right past.
Look up to capture the mesmerizing geometry of skyscrapers converging towards the sky, the underside of a bridge, or the intricate ceiling of a grand old train station. Look down to find interesting manhole covers, painted lines on the road, a discarded flower, or the patterns your own feet make as you walk. It’s a simple shift that unlocks a world of new compositions.
Pro-Tip: When looking up at tall buildings, try to include a corner or edge of the building in your frame to give the image a sense of scale and prevent it from becoming too abstract.
Your Canvas is Calling
Your daily commute doesn't have to be a void in your day. It’s a free, recurring, and endlessly fascinating photo walk. The 19 techniques above aren't just a checklist; they are a new way of seeing the world you travel through every single day. Start with one or two that resonate with you. Maybe tomorrow, you'll only hunt for shadows. The next day, you'll focus on reflections.
The most important thing is to be curious. Look closer. Be patient. Your smartphone is more than capable, and your daily route is more interesting than you think. Turn your mundane journey into a creative adventure.
So, what’s the first technique you’re going to try on your commute tomorrow? Head down to the comments and let me know. Better yet, capture something amazing and share it on Instagram. Tag us and use the hashtag #UrbanCanvasCommute so we can see the city through your eyes
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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