7 Street Photography Techniques (With Real Examples from Havana)

Street photography is about more than just capturing what’s happening around you—it’s about telling a story in a single frame. Using the right technique, you can transform an ordinary scene into something extraordinary. Mastering street photography isn’t just about being in the right place at the right time; it’s about understanding light, composition, movement, and perspective, and using them deliberately to shape how viewers experience your images.

In this guide, I’ll share seven techniques that consistently help make street photos more dynamic, memorable, and visually engaging. From harnessing contrast to capturing motion, layering your scene, and choosing the right aperture, each method is designed to help you see and photograph the world with more intention and creativity.

1. Using Contrast to Create Impact

One of the most powerful tools in street photography is contrast. But keep in mind there are many ways to create contrast. If we want our photos to be in another level we need to be more creative in creating contrast.

The most obvious and straight forward way to create contrast is use toning. When using toning to create contrast, lighting plays a very important role. For photography, lighting is always important, but in this scenario it’s even more so. In general, when the light comes from the side, it’s easier for us to see the form and texture, because we can see shadows. When the light is between side lighting and back lighting, we get the most contrast. Bright highlights clashing with deep shadows. Many photographers avoid these high-contrast situations because of the difficulty in controlling dynamic range, but embracing them can lead to images that feel bold, dramatic, and unforgettable.

Backing lighting. Sun is coming from 2 o’clock position

Side lighting. Sun is coming from 9 o’clock position

But it doesn’t means that when the sun is coming from front we can’t have contrast. We can always use shadows to add more darkness to the image, and this darkness, together with the area that is under the sun, will create contrast. These shadows are usually the casting shadows of the objects that are nearby. When shooting in a narrow street, it’s very easy to apply this technique.

use the casting shadow or nearby building to add darkness and create contrast

Use the silhouette to add contrast to the bright wall.

We can also create contrast using colours. Here are some examples of photos using complementary colours to add contrast. You can see that there is already enough toning contrast on both of these images, but using complementary colours can bring the contrast to another level.

blue car and yellow building.

Building in warm tone and sky in cold tone.

Contrast can also come from the story within the frame. In the example photo below, a young girl is running beside a vintage car. Her energy and small frame contrasts with the stillness and bulk of the vehicle. Likewise, her youth opposes the car’s age.

In a second example, an old man is sharing the street with a tiny kitten. Their differences in age, size, and even direction of gaze show great contrast. Together they look like a family, but they are also vastly different.

2. Using Motion Blur to Suggest Movement

Compared to video, photos have one obvious draw back… there is no movement. Some people might think: “So what?” But movement is an important part of visual art. Many movie directors use it as critical tool for composition, such as the famous Japanese movie director, Akira Kurosawa. He is a master on composing movement. His work has influenced many of Hollywood’s greatest directors. You might think then that it’s unfortunate for photographers, because we shoot still photos. Well, we can still find ways to suggest it. Firstly, gestures can definitely give a sense of movement. When you emphasize the gesture of walking or running, you can instantly communicate action.

When human gesture is not something we can use, there are other things that can help create a sense of movement. Certain subjects always give us a sense of movement, for example birds. When we see birds in the sky, our brain will immediately process the information as they are flying.

There are people walking in the plaza but the movement effect is not nearly as strong as the flying pigeons.

But sometimes certain objects can be both static or moving. For example, a car on the street doesn't always give us the sense of the movement. To make the audience feel that the car is moving, or moving faster than it appears, we need to do more. Slow down your shutter speed and embrace the motion blur. The motion blur will create a great sense of movement. A blurred car rushing past a sharp, static background additionally creates contrast, motion against stillness. This makes the scene feel alive. Used well, motion blur injects energy and rhythm, giving your still images a cinematic quality.

Early morning in Central Havana. A car is moving fast along the Galiano street, taking passengers to work. But can you feel it? The fast shutter speed freezes the car and totally kills the sense of movement. It creates a relaxed and slow paced feeling. The opposite of what we want.

This time we slowed the shutter speed to 1/25s. Now car is really moving. And it’s moving really fast. The car is flying by an old man who’s crossing the street. This makes the sense of movement even stronger.

3. Using Vertical, Horizontal and Diagonal Lines for different energy and mood.

Lines are everywhere in photography, but not all lines carry the same weight. Vertical and horizontal lines create stability and harmony, while diagonal lines produce movement, tension, and visual flow.

Let’s take a look at using vertical lines and horizontal lines first.

Now let’s take a look at using diagonal lines. By simply turning the camera a bit to the side we create diagonal lines. Can you feel the energy change?

One advice about using this technique: make your intention obvious. This is not the time to be subtle. If your intention is not obvious the photo will look weak.

The vertical lines are not quite vertical and the horizontal lines are not quite horizontal. They don’t look diagonal enough either. This what a normal snapshot looks like. Taking photos without a clear intention.

Lines can appear anywhere, sometimes casting shadows can be quite helpful on creating lines.

Wide-angle lenses can exaggerate these lines through distortion, and tilting the camera further emphasizes their effect. When combined thoughtfully, this technique can add a lot of drama and energy to the image.

Shot with a Voigtlander Ultron 28mm F2 with the camera tilted to the right. This creates a strong sense of drama. The old man is tired, he is carrying something heavy and the tilted building just makes this feeling even stronger. He could fall any time just like the building beside him. The cracked concrete sidewalk gives a sense that the road in front of him is not an easy one. Pay attention to the diagonal lines that lead to where the sun is coming from. It’s in the same direction of where he is looking at. Despite adversity, he didn’t give up.

4. Choose Your Aperture Wisely

When talking about aperture control, depth of field is what most of of photographers will think of. 99% of photographers use aperture to control how things will be in focus. Shallow depth of field will single out one subject to make stand out more. Deep depth of field will keep everything in focus. That’s pretty much most of photographers will use aperture for. Some photographers, use aperture to get better image quality. More sharpness and less vignette. Is aperture have any other use? Well, yes there is and for me it’s important one.

Aperture also affects how light behaves. Shooting wide open often creates a soft, dreamy look, with gentle flares and glow that feel nostalgic or cozy. Stop down, and the look changes completely: streetlights and headlights become crisp starbursts, injecting energy and tension into the scene.

28mm @ F2

28mm @F5.6

One single street light probably won’t make much difference for the mood of the whole image but if there are a lot of them, it will for sure.

28mm @F2 Aperture wide open.

Of course, this rendering character can be seen on other light sources too. It works especially well on the decoration lights of the buildings. The flare coming from these lights creates a very cozy and dreamy look which fits the night scene quite well.

So how can you maintain depth of field while still capturing that wide-open, glowing character? One solution is to use a wide-angle lens — 21mm, 28mm, or 35mm. By avoiding subjects too close to the camera, you can keep much of the scene in focus while still enjoying the dreamy, wide-aperture look that adds mood and atmosphere to your photos.

5. Dealing with the Sky

Sky can make or break your shots. Weather is crucial for photography but that doesn't mean we can only shoot under certain weather. Sometime the biggest challenge is dealing with problematic sky, sky that is too bright and too boring. In other words, lack of features. To deal with it we need keep the pixel counts for the sky on the low level, not as low as possible because sky could be an important part of the photo in terms providing information about time of day and weather. But when there are not much features for the sky, we need to keep it small so it won’t make the whole photo boring. How? pick angle that you can use something to partially block the sky. It could be a building, a tree. Anything that can block the sky. Leave only enough information so people can get the idea of what time of day or what weather.

Flat lighting and boring sky can easily kill your shot

The palm tree not only block the boring sky it always work as foreground element to help in crease the depth to the photo

Sometime you can simply “push” the build more upwards to cover up the boring sky

But sometimes times the sky is absolutely amazing, beautiful color, amazing cloud with lots of textures. When that happen consider make the sky the main idea. This is when we need to incorporate a lot of sky in the image. This usually will give us great result. A reminder here, don’t overdo on the shadow recovery. Many photographers took great photos but later destroy them in the post editing. HDR effect usually will kill the image but introducing unnecessary details. Many times, silhouette will work perfectly well and it fits the mood.

6. Use Reflections

Reflections are one of the simplest ways to add visual interest and complexity to your photos. Water is the most common reflective surface, but don’t overlook wet streets, glass windows, or shiny car paint. These surfaces can double the depth of your image or introduce unexpected colors.

Humans are naturally drawn to reflections because they stimulate curiosity and mimic symmetry, which our brains find pleasing. In photography, this translates into images that feel dynamic and layered.

A word of caution: don’t overdo it. Not all reflective surfaces add beauty — puddles on the street can sometimes distract or contradict the mood you’re trying to convey. Always ask whether the reflection supports the story or pulls attention away from it.

7 Having more than one point of interest in your photo.

One photo on idea. one point of interest, that’s normally the case but sometimes, we need more than one subject to better convey the idea. Having more than one point of interests in our photo have several benefits.

It makes the composition stronger by balancing each other. This is when you place one subject on side of the photo and the another over the other side.

The hotel on the left and the old man on the right

It helps to add more layers in the photos. Serving and foreground, middle ground or background.

It can help create a sense of scale. Help viewers to understand the size.

Final Thoughts

Street photography is about choices — where to stand, when to click, and how to use the light and environment around you. These seven techniques aren’t rules; they’re tools. The more you practice, the more instinctive they become, and the more your photos will carry your personal voice.