A way of seeing, walking, and listening to the city
Urban photography is often described as a genre. A category. A catch-all bucket that includes street photography, cityscapes, architecture, portraits, and documentary work. That description isn’t wrong—but it’s incomplete.
Urban photography is not defined by what it photographs.
It’s defined by how and why we photograph the city.
At its core, urban photography is a form of visual storytelling that uses the city as both subject and collaborator. It’s about people, yes—but also about space, light, movement, friction, silence, repetition, and scale. It’s about understanding that cities are living systems, constantly reshaping themselves and the people moving through them.
As Whitney Perkins writes, urban photography captures the complex and ever-changing nature of city life through storytelling rather than spectacle. That framing resonates deeply with my own practice.
Because for me, urban photography begins long before the camera is raised.
Urban photography starts with walking
I don’t believe you can understand a city from behind a windshield. Or from a checklist of landmarks. Or from chasing “Instagram spots.”
Urban photography begins at street level, at walking speed.
Walking slows you down enough to notice patterns—how people occupy space, how architecture directs movement, how light ricochets between buildings, how one neighborhood breathes differently from the next. This is why walking the city is not just part of my process—it is the process (Why Walking the City Is Essential to My Urban Photography Practice).
Cities reveal themselves incrementally. Block by block. Step by step. Urban photography rewards patience, not efficiency.
Not just street photography (but it includes it)
Urban photography is often conflated with street photography. Street photography lives inside urban photography—but it doesn’t define it.
Street photography tends to prioritize the decisive moment, gesture, or interaction. Urban photography zooms out. It asks broader questions: how do people relate to their environment, how does architecture shape behaviour, what stories exist in the absence of action, and what happens between moments?
This is why urban photography can include street portraits, cityscapes and urban landscapes, architectural studies, documentary projects, and black-and-white work emphasizing contrast and form.
As Picture Frames Express notes, urban photography spans everything from street photography to landscape and architectural photography. The unifying thread isn’t subject matter—it’s context.
The city as a character, not a backdrop
In urban photography, the city isn’t a backdrop. It’s a character.
This idea aligns closely with the LIFE magazine photo-essay tradition—where individual images gain meaning through sequence and intent (How to Build a LIFE Magazine Photo Essay). Urban photography works best when it’s not chasing one strong image, but building a visual conversation over time.
This is why projects matter. Why returning to the same streets matters. Why committing to voice and niche matters (Chapter Two of the Two-Year Project).
Cities don’t reveal themselves all at once. Neither should your work.
Presence over performance
One of the biggest misconceptions about urban photography is that it’s performative—that it requires boldness, confrontation, or spectacle.
I disagree.
Urban photography rewards presence more than bravado. It asks you to be observant rather than intrusive. This philosophy informs how I approach street portraiture, especially in projects like Faces of Toronto, where intimacy comes not from proximity alone, but from intention (Faces of Toronto).
This same thinking underpins my preference for the 28mm field of view—not because it’s trendy, but because it forces me to include context. The subject doesn’t float in isolation. They exist within the city, and the city exists with them (Finding Style in the Street).
Urban photography is a point of view
Urban photography isn’t neutral. It never has been.
Every frame carries choices: where you stand, what you include, what you exclude, and when you press the shutter. Even the decision to walk past something is a form of authorship.
This is why I often think about urban photography in parallel with self-portraiture—not in the literal sense, but philosophically (Selfies vs. Self-Portraits). The city becomes a mirror. What you notice says as much about you as it does about the street.
Garry Winogrand understood this deeply. His work wasn’t about explaining America—it was about showing how it felt to be there (Garry Winogrand and His 28mm Lens).
Urban photography doesn’t resolve questions. It asks better ones.
Tools matter—but only in service of intent
Yes, gear matters. Sensors matter. Lenses matter. But only after intent is established.
Urban photography demands adaptability. Sometimes that means speed and depth of field. Sometimes it means deliberation and scale. Different tools serve different urban problems (One Field of View, Three Sensors).
The mistake is choosing tools before choosing a purpose.
Urban photography isn’t about maximizing sharpness or resolution—it’s about matching the tool to the experience you’re trying to document.
Why urban photography matters
More than half the world’s population lives in cities—a number that continues to grow. Urban photography isn’t a niche. It’s essential.
Cities are where culture collides, where inequality is visible, and where progress and decay coexist. Urban photography becomes a visual record of how we live now—not how we wish we did.
Urban photography captures a city’s history and character in real time. Not retrospectively. Not nostalgically. But presently.
So what is urban photography?
Urban photography is not just photographs taken in cities.
It is walking without an agenda, paying attention without expectation, using the camera as a listening device, and letting the city speak before you do.
It’s about presence over performance. Context over isolation. Process over perfection.
Urban photography isn’t about mastering the city.
It’s about letting the city change how you see.