Contrast City

Bangalore is a city close to my heart. It is the place where my wife was born, where we were married back in 2018, and where I return to almost yearly since then to visit family and friends, as well as a slice of the South Indian filter coffee and breakfast bar culture.

It is also a city of contrasts. With a thriving tech industry and rapid urban development, it’s probably one of the more modern cities in India alongside Mumbai. That said, it’s also known as the “Garden City of India” due to the numerous parks, tree-lined streets and botanical gardens throughout the city. There is also the fair share of transitional Indian life that can be seen at the various landmarks, temples and street markets on offer.

This post will guide you through some of my favourite spots for street photography in Bangalore and discuss the context behind some of the scenes I’ve captured so far.

01Overview

Ever since I became involved with street photography in 2023, I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to bring the mindset to India. With my wife becoming pregnant early in 2024, we didn’t manage to find the time to make it over until our son was born and he was old enough for the journey from London.

In October 2025, my wife and I bought our son to his second city for the first time. During this trip, I had a few opportunities to explore the city with my camera, this time mostly centred around the thriving market life of KR Market, Shivaji Nagar and the surrounding commercial areas. There is still so much of the city left to explore, and on our subsequent trips over the coming years I hope to make it further north up the country to continue with this project.

As a street photographer, Bangalore, and India in general, is a perfect place to explore with a camera. The above image, I think, encapsulates Bangalore almost perfectly: beauty and nature forcing its way through the gaps of the chaotic drive for urban growth.

02KR Market

The majority of the photographs in this series so far were shot in the early hours of the morning, where the markets are at their busiest and most vibrant. As the sun is rising, the many flower and vegetable merchants of KR Market can be seen rushing to prepare their stock for the daily trade.

It’s an extremely busy and compact space, and I was lucky to have a family friend who was kind enough to guide me around the area and weave us through the congested traffic on the back of their motorbike. On subsequent visits, I took an Uber by myself as close to the market as possible, but walked the last kilometre or so at the risk of getting stuck in a sea of autos.

The market has a rich legacy and was built in 1928 on the site of an 18th-century water tank and a battlefield of the Anglo-Mysore war, and you can clearly see the historical significance in the architecture of the main building. Surrounding the building are many streets filled with shops and temporary stalls, and it’s easy to get lost in the evolving pathways that get cleared as people, cows and autos move to wherever they can find space.

The space inside the main building is well-lit and has some areas with natural light filtering in through gaps where large staircases lead up to the street. I found myself spinning the aperture dial from around f2.8 all the way up f.7.1 in some cases, as the light was so varied.

There are brightly-coloured flowers everywhere and the majority of the walls are decorated with vibrant primary and secondary colours, covered with lettering and symbols, so no matter where you turn there’s an interesting frame for whatever subject happens to walk by. It’s hard not to point your camera at the displays themselves as the main subject. It’s super impressive seeing the dedication to creating string garlands and huge bouquets of flowers up close, especially as they’re sold or, in some cases, go rotten so quickly.

The vendors and customers in the area were extremely generous with their patience for the evident tourist loitering around and taking photos. Bangaloreans in general are either apathetic or enthusiastic subjects, but at KR market in particular I’d say that most people didn’t even notice me standing there, despite shooting close on 28mm.

When taking the image below, for example, I was literally standing in front of the people carrying their morning haul up on their shoulders and they didn’t notice me even as I stepped out of their path.

KR Market is overwhelming in a few ways, but especially in that there is something to capture in whatever direction you are facing. As it’s such a busy space, you need to be constantly vigilant of the streams of people carrying large and heavy objects at head level, but I would say that I felt completely safe and welcomed by the regulars.

I spent several hours around the market on three separate occasions, but I don’t feel like I scratched the surface. It’ll be top of my list of places to return to on our next visit.

03Shivaji Nagar

By comparison, I found Shivaji Nagar to be a much calmer area to navigate, at least during the morning hours when I was visiting. There’s still plenty of activity, with the nearby shopping hub of Commercial Street and Russell Market selling all sorts of produce, but focusing on meat and fish.

On both visits to Russell Market, I arrived fairly early in the morning, which differs from KR Market in that most of the activity happens later in the day. It did give me an opportunity to explore the slighter eerier atmosphere of an almost empty 1920’s market, with a few traders in the background getting ahead of the day.

Shivaji Nagar really does give you a great sense of modernity and tradition in Bangalore, so it’s worth exploring the streets around the market and making your way towards Commercial Street and the shopping districts for well-lit shop fronts.

04Lalbagh Botanical Garden

Lalbagh is one of my favourite places in the city, not just for photography but for long walks and huge centries-old trees, notably a giant silk cotton tree which potentially pre-dates British rule. It also had, in my opinion, an excessive amount of ironically funny, instructive signs around the place telling you all the prohibited activities you’re not supposed to do.

I wouldn’t say it’s my most productive place to work on street photography, but it is a welcome break to take a breather from the traffic and chaos of the city. Most of my favourite “street” shots from the gardens are of uncles taking a snooze in the sun.

Another green space that’s a favourite of mine in the city is Cubbon Park. There’s over 300 acres of land to explore, plenty of wildlife, and some beautiful red-painted buildings, including the State Central library (although photography around the government buildings is pretty heavily restricted).

05Exploring the city’s edges

I tried starting each photo walk day with a solid plan, especially to make the most of the early morning (cooler) hours, but after making a start at a given location, I often felt the urge to wander off the planned track and visit the peripheries of a location.

In fact my favourite shot of the entire trip came to me while I was waiting for an Uber home at the bus stand a few kilometers away from KR Market, which can be seen at the top of this post. I was leaning against a fence and I noticed someone else had done the same to make a phone call. The lines of the fence and the solid blue, yellow and peach surfaces in the background already prompted to the lift the camera, and then someone else walked into the shot and for a split second both men happened to make a similar hand gesture to their faces.

Bus stands in general turned out to be fruitful places to linger. When the sun was higher in the sky, you could get some stark reflections in the windshields and windows, and the colourful paintwork was useful for contrasting with people’s shadows. They tend to be extremely busy areas, so there are always plenty of potential subjects around.

I also spent a few afternoons, while my wife and son were napping, walking around the backstreets of the Banashankari neighbourhood, looking for colourful backdrops and interesting characters. Most of these side streets were relatively quiet, but the more interesting frames I found usually featured building works or parked autos.

On several occasions, I bumped into the same older guy, and on one particular afternoon I found him sitting in the sun smoking hash and wearing a “Born to Ride” beanie. He absolutely could not care less about my presence, so I lifted the camera, gave him a quick nod, and left to find another scene.

06Mysore

Mysore is a refreshing contrast to Bangalore, in that it is a much calmer city, known for its royal palaces and yoga centres. If you have the time, I highly recommend the trip as it’s only 90 miles away and well connected by train. We’ve visited before by train, but this time my in-laws decided it would be a good idea to let me brave the drive up the long stretch of highways between the cities in their car.

I made two main stops while visiting Mysore on this trip: Devaraja Market and Chamundi Hills, as well as a brief visit to Mysore Palace. Devaraji Market feels similar to Bangalore’s KR Market in some ways, although it is smaller in scale and more tourist-friendly. The market sells tourist goods, flowers, and local produce, such as the famous Mysore Pak.

The market is mostly covered, so you can visit any time of day, but we were there in the evening as the sun was setting and the purple sky was visible through the gaps of the corrugated steel coverings of the stalls on either side of the bazaar.

07Chamundi Hills

Waking up early before the dawn, I took a taxi to the bottom of the stairs leading up Chamundi Hills. Seen as an act of divine devotion, or a good way to get in some exercise, climbing the 1008 steps eventually leads you to the Chamundeshwari Temple. It probably took me around an hour to climb, but that was with frequent stops to take photographs or talk to some of the locals.

On the way up, you’re treated to some beautiful panoramic views of the city from various lookup points, so I recommend climbing early on a clear day. The route also takes you up through forested areas, so there are plenty of animals around including monkeys and wild indie-dogs, as well as the usual cows and goats outside private residences.

08What’s next

After culling and editing my favourite images from this trip, I felt the familiar urge to rush to put something into print to mark a “satisfying” end to something. As much as possible I pushed that down and reminded myself that I had hardly covered one city, let alone the rest that India has to offer in terms of street photography.

I’m still not sure what the scope of this project is, whether I double-down on the “Contrast City” aspect or work towards a wider project celebrating India as a whole. What I do know is that my family and I will be visiting India many more times over the years, and as our son grows up we’d love to get more adventurous with our travels, and so I’m coming to love the idea of this as an evolving, ongoing project that will span a number of years and hopefully encompass his experiences too.

If you want to see more street photography from Bangalore, I highly recommend following Arindam Thokder on Instagram. For more Bangalore-based tips, I’d recommend reading through F.D. Walker’s city guide, which helped me immensely when planning the solo photo walks.

All photographs included in this post are featured in my ongoing India project, and were made in Bangalore and Mysore in the autumn of 2025 by Daniel Rao-Gynn.