Top 20 'Everyday-Elevating' Photo Tricks to learn for Making Ordinary Moments Look Cinematic on Instagram
Ever scroll through Instagram and wonder how some people make their everyday life look like a still from an indie film? That perfect shot of a morning coffee, a walk in the park, or a rainy city street—it’s not just luck, and it’s definitely not about having a Hollywood-level camera crew. The secret lies in a collection of simple, learnable tricks that train your eye to see the cinematic potential hiding in plain sight.
The truth is, your world is already filled with beautiful, story-rich moments. The challenge is capturing them in a way that translates that emotion and atmosphere to the screen. It's about shifting your perspective from simply documenting a moment to crafting it. It’s about understanding how light, composition, and color work together to create a mood.
Ready to stop just taking pictures and start telling stories? We’ve compiled the ultimate list of 20 'everyday-elevating' photo tricks. Whether you're using a professional DSLR or the smartphone in your pocket, these techniques will transform your feed, making the ordinary look absolutely extraordinary.
1. Chase the Golden Hour Glow
This is rule number one in the cinematic playbook for a reason. "Golden hour" is the period shortly after sunrise and before sunset when the sun is low in the sky, casting a soft, warm, golden light over everything. This light is incredibly flattering for portraits and adds a magical, nostalgic feeling to landscapes.
Unlike the harsh, direct light of midday which creates sharp shadows, golden hour light is diffused and directional. It wraps around your subjects, creating long, soft shadows that add depth and dimension. Plan your photo walks for this time. Capture a friend laughing in a field, the silhouette of your city's skyline, or even just the way the light streams through your window and hits a dusty bookshelf.
2. Embrace the Blue Hour Mood
If golden hour is the warm, romantic lead, then "blue hour" is the cool, mysterious supporting act. This is the period just before sunrise and right after sunset when the sun is below the horizon, filling the sky with a deep, ambient blue light. It's a time of quiet and tranquility.
Blue hour is perfect for capturing cityscapes as the artificial lights of buildings and streets begin to glow against the deep blue sky. It creates a high-contrast, moody, and deeply cinematic look. It's also fantastic for minimalist landscapes, like a lone tree by a still lake, where the cool tones evoke a sense of peace and solitude.
3. Find the Frame Within a Frame
This is a classic composition technique that instantly adds depth and context to your photos. The idea is to use an element in your scene to create a natural border around your main subject. This focuses the viewer's attention and makes the image feel more intentional and layered.
Look for doorways, windows, archways, or even the space between two trees. You can shoot a portrait of someone looking out a window from inside the room, or capture a bustling street scene through the arch of a bridge. This technique makes the viewer feel like they are peeking into the scene, adding a compelling, narrative quality.
4. Master the Art of Leading Lines
Our eyes are naturally drawn to lines. In photography, you can use this to your advantage by finding "leading lines" that guide the viewer's eye through the image, directly to your subject. They create a sense of movement and depth, turning a flat image into a three-dimensional journey.
Roads, pathways, fences, staircases, rivers, and even the shadows cast by buildings can all act as powerful leading lines. The next time you're out, instead of just pointing and shooting, take a moment to see where the lines in the environment are pointing. Position your subject at the end of a line, or use an S-curve in a road to create a more dynamic and engaging composition.
5. Play with Puddles and Reflections
Reflections are a gift to photographers. They offer a chance to create symmetry, add a layer of intrigue, and show a familiar scene in a completely new way. The world is full of reflective surfaces once you start looking for them.
After it rains, a simple puddle on the pavement can perfectly mirror a city skyline or a colorful sunset. Store windows, sunglasses, a calm lake, or even a shiny car hood can be used to create stunning, often abstract, images. Pro tip: get your camera lens as close to the water's surface as possible for the most dramatic and seamless reflection shot.
6. Shoot Through Obscuring Foregrounds
Ever see a photo that feels intimate and almost voyeuristic, as if you're peeking into a private moment? This is often achieved by shooting through something in the foreground. This technique, known as foreground obscuring, adds incredible depth and a professional, cinematic quality to your shots.
The key is to place an object—like a leafy branch, a coffee cup, or a curtain—very close to your lens so it's out of focus. Your camera should be focused on the main subject further away. This creates a soft, blurry frame around your subject, drawing the eye directly to them. Try shooting a friend's portrait through a string of fairy lights or capturing a street scene through the rain-streaked window of a café.
7. Leverage the Power of Negative Space
Sometimes, what you don't include in a photo is just as important as what you do. Negative space is the empty or uncluttered area around your main subject. Using it effectively can make your subject stand out, creating a sense of scale, peace, or even isolation.
Instead of filling the entire frame, place your subject off to one side and let a vast blue sky, a minimalist wall, or a calm body of water fill the rest of the image. This gives your photo room to breathe and creates a clean, powerful, and often very emotional composition. It’s a minimalist approach that delivers maximum impact.
8. Find Drama in High Contrast & Shadows
We’re often told to avoid shooting in the middle of the day because of the harsh light. But what if you lean into it? Bright, direct sunlight creates deep, graphic shadows that can be used to create incredibly dramatic and abstract images. This is a technique I know the team at Goh Ling Yong uses frequently to add a sense of bold narrative to architectural shots.
Look for the interesting shapes that shadows create on walls, sidewalks, and faces. You can capture the long shadow of a lone person walking down the street, or the geometric patterns cast by a staircase or a fence. Playing with this high-contrast black-and-white look can turn a mundane urban scene into a piece of art.
9. Capture the Candid "In-Between" Moments
Posed photos are great, but the real cinematic magic often lies in the moments in between. These are the candid, unscripted instances that reveal genuine emotion and tell a more authentic story—a quiet laugh, a thoughtful glance, the way someone’s hands are fidgeting with a coffee cup.
To capture these, you need to be patient and observant. Instead of saying "say cheese," just keep your camera ready while you're talking or interacting with people. Use your phone's burst mode to capture a series of shots, then pick the one that feels the most natural and alive. These are the images that truly resonate.
10. Get Low for a Hero's Perspective
Most of us take photos from eye level, which is exactly how we see the world every day. To make a photo more interesting, you need to break that habit. One of the easiest ways to do this is to simply get low—crouch down, or even lie on the ground.
Shooting from a low angle makes your subject look more powerful and dominant, which is why it's often called the "hero shot." It’s great for portraits, but it also works wonders on architecture and even small objects. A low angle can make a simple puddle look like a lake or a small plant look like a towering forest. It forces the viewer to see a familiar subject from a completely new and engaging perspective.
11. Go High for a Bird's-Eye View
The opposite of getting low is, of course, getting high. A bird's-eye view, or top-down shot, is a fantastic way to showcase patterns, textures, and relationships between objects that you wouldn't normally see. It’s the secret behind every beautiful flat lay of a meal or a workspace you’ve seen on Instagram.
You don't need a drone for this. Simply stand on a chair to shoot your brunch table, or hold your camera over your head to capture the pattern of floor tiles. This perspective removes distracting backgrounds and focuses entirely on the form and composition of your subjects, resulting in clean, graphic, and visually satisfying images.
12. Focus on the Small, Storytelling Details
A cinematic story isn't always about the grand, sweeping vista. Often, it's the tiny details that carry the most emotional weight. Training your eye to see these small moments can add a rich layer of narrative to your photography.
Instead of taking a wide shot of a café, focus on the steam rising from a single coffee cup. Instead of a full-body portrait, capture a close-up of a person's hands clasped together. These macro shots—of raindrops on a leaf, the texture of a worn book cover, the chipped paint on a park bench—invite the viewer to slow down and appreciate the beauty in the mundane.
13. Create Magic with Motion Blur
A static photo freezes a moment, but a photo with motion blur tells you that moment was part of a dynamic story. Intentionally using blur can add energy, speed, and a dreamlike quality to your images. There are two main ways to do this.
First is panning: you move your camera to follow a moving subject (like a cyclist or a car). If you get the speed right, your subject will be relatively sharp while the background blurs into streaks of motion. The second is using a slow shutter speed to capture things like car light trails at night or the silky-smooth movement of a waterfall. Most newer smartphones have a "long exposure" mode to make this easy.
14. Master the Dramatic Silhouette
Silhouettes are pure drama. They are created when you place your subject in front of a bright light source—typically the sun at sunrise or sunset—and expose for the bright background. This makes your subject appear as a dark, solid shape, stripped of all detail except its outline.
This technique is incredibly effective because it's mysterious and leaves much to the imagination. The shape of the subject becomes the focal point. It's perfect for capturing a couple against a sunset, a lone figure on a hill, or the jagged outline of a city skyline. The key is to have a clean, strong shape and an interesting, bright background.
15. Find Harmony in Symmetry
Our brains are hardwired to find symmetry pleasing. It creates a sense of balance, harmony, and order that is instantly satisfying to look at. Seeking out symmetry in your daily environment is a simple way to create powerful and compelling compositions.
Look for it in architecture, where a building's reflection in water creates perfect vertical symmetry, or in a long, straight road that provides horizontal symmetry. Even a simple portrait, shot straight-on, can have a powerful, symmetrical feel. When you find a symmetrical scene, place the line of symmetry directly in the center of your frame for the most impactful result.
16. Tell a Story with Color Grading
Color is one of the most powerful tools for setting a mood. Think about your favorite films—they almost always use a specific color palette to convey emotion. You can do the same with your photos in the editing process. This is often the final touch that pushes a good photo into "cinematic" territory.
A popular cinematic look is the "teal and orange" palette, where you push blues/cyans into the shadows and oranges/yellows into the highlights. This mimics the color contrast used in many blockbuster films. You can also create a moody, desaturated look by reducing vibrancy and crushing the blacks, or a warm, nostalgic feel by adding yellow tones and a bit of grain. Apps like Adobe Lightroom Mobile or VSCO make this incredibly accessible.
17. Add a Human Element for Scale
A beautiful landscape is great, but a beautiful landscape with a tiny person in it tells a story. Adding a human element to your shots, especially vast ones, serves two crucial purposes: it provides a sense of scale, and it gives the viewer a focal point to connect with emotionally.
That tiny figure standing at the edge of a cliff or walking down an empty street emphasizes the vastness of the environment. It makes the scene more relatable and invites the viewer to imagine themselves in that place. The person doesn't even need to be the main subject; they can be a small but vital part of the overall composition.
18. Use Artificial Light to Your Advantage
The sun isn't the only light source available. The world is filled with artificial lights that can add incredible atmosphere and color to your photos, especially at night. As Goh Ling Yong often says, photography is about painting with light, and that includes the man-made kind.
Neon signs can cast a vibrant, cyberpunk-esque glow on your subject. Streetlights can create pools of warm, dramatic light on an otherwise dark street. Even simple fairy lights can be used to create beautiful, sparkling bokeh (the blurry, out-of-focus-light effect) in the background of a portrait. Don't be afraid of the dark; it's an opportunity to play with a different kind of light.
19. Find Beauty in "Bad" Weather
Clear, sunny days are nice, but fog, rain, and snow are a cinematic photographer's dream. "Bad" weather creates a mood and atmosphere that you simply can't get on a perfect day. So, instead of putting your camera away, grab an umbrella and head outside.
Fog simplifies a scene, hiding distracting backgrounds and creating a mysterious, ethereal quality. Rain creates beautiful reflections on the streets and can add a moody, romantic, or lonely feeling to an image. Snow blankets the world in a soft, clean layer, simplifying compositions and bouncing soft light everywhere. Some of the most compelling photos are taken when most people are hiding indoors.
20. Add Film Grain for a Timeless Feel
Digital cameras produce incredibly clean, sharp images. While technically impressive, this can sometimes feel a bit sterile and cold. One of the defining characteristics of classic cinema is the subtle texture of film grain. You can easily replicate this in post-processing to add a touch of nostalgia and timelessness to your photos.
Almost all editing apps have a "grain" or "texture" slider. A little bit goes a long way. Adding a subtle layer of grain can soften a digital image, unify the colors, and give it a tangible, organic texture. It’s the final sprinkle of cinematic dust that can make your photos feel less like a digital file and more like a cherished memory.
Making your everyday life look cinematic isn't about faking it. It's about paying closer attention to the world around you and learning the visual language of storytelling. It's about recognizing that a simple shadow, a puddle, or the light from a setting sun holds incredible photographic potential.
The best way to get started is to pick just one or two of these tricks and focus on them for a week. Maybe you'll only shoot during golden hour, or perhaps you'll look for leading lines everywhere you go. With practice, these techniques will become second nature, and you'll start seeing cinematic moments everywhere.
Which of these tricks are you most excited to try? Did we miss any of your favorites? Let us know in the comments below, and don't forget to tag us on Instagram with your cinematic shots. We can't wait to see the world 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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