Downtown Nashville Architecture Photography from the Sky – Part 2: The Gulch & Nashville Yards

There are SO many things happening in downtown Nashville (architecturally speaking) that it is hard to just post about and focus on one building at a time. From time to time, I may just post a compilation of different images I gathered during one of my outings and this is one of them.

Drones are still relatively "new" to the architectural photography space and, even for me, it doesn't quite feel the same as shooting with my regular mirrorless camera and tilt-shift lens toolkit. However, commercial architectural photography is less about the gear and more about light, composition and TIMING. That said, as I explore Nashville I am noticing that timing is everything.

Most of the "good light" in the Gulch area seems to happen in the late afternoon. Depending on the building you are looking at, most of the morning light is directionally blocked by other buildings. Don't get me wrong - I have gone through in the early morning and there is still some beautiful light hitting structures in a beautiful way... I have just not yet focused on those. I will get there.

Another thing that I have noticed is that the majority of the new structures going up are very VERY reflective and is very challenging to find a composition that doesn't have a ton of distracting reflections in the surface so timing is absolutely critical for some of these... and I have found that taking them from the air really helps. Without further ado...

The CapStar building at 1201 Broadway, dusk catching the glass on three sides at once. One of those evenings where everything cooperated.

Asurion HQ in Nashville Yards at sunset, the terraced rooftop amenity spaces lit up against an unreal sky.

The Grand Hyatt at Nashville Yards just after sunset, the illuminated edges of the tower starting to pull against the fading sky.

Gulch Crossing at dusk, the building lit from within and the Synovus signage just catching against the purple sky. You can see more of this building from the ground level HERE.