‘I had to wait for some colour to arrive – the red man appeared at just the right moment’: Zahyr Caan’s finest cellphone image | Pictures

Zahyr Caan was on a sightseeing journey to Tokyo when he took this {photograph}. He was in Ginza, on his strategy to go to the Gundam statue, having tried Japanese muffins for breakfast at an unique restaurant. It was an August morning, and the temperature had already hit 38C.

“The sun was very bright, meaning excellent conditions for my style of street photography,” says Caan, who was born in Pakistan and now lives in Nottingham. “I like to create a mise en scène and then wait for a human element to enter the frame.”

Caan says that he was “drawn towards the strong shadow and light, creating a graphic scene”, however he needed to anticipate some color to reach and tie the picture collectively. “This came in the form of a taxi,” he says. “The red man appeared at just the right moment and became a bonus, as is the nature sometimes when you’re shooting ad hoc within an urban environment.”

He used an iPhone 13 Pro Max and utilized minimal edits, except for lightening and darkening changes. Street images, he provides, is a mix of “art and skill”.

“It’s easier than ever now, thanks to smartphone technology and the ability to be very discreet. If we really start to pay attention, we see much more than what is visible at first look. I hope people notice the colours here, and the overall tone, all tied together with the extended relationship between the yellow taxi and the red man.”