Downtown Nashville at the Cumberland River
Sunset over downtown Nashville at the Cumberland River from the Shelby Street Pedestrian Bridge
Sunset over downtown Nashville at the Cumberland River from the Shelby Street Pedestrian Bridge
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Apr, 2015Views
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ericcriswell
July 29, 2015
it was absolutely one of the best sunsets I have witnessed! I was there for blue hour which never really popped but boy was sunset worth the time waiting!
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lianeadele
February 04, 2016
You have some great night time shots. I hope you will join my photo challenge City Nights by lianeadele
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken on the Shelby Street Pedestrian Bridge in downtown Nashville. My daughter and I were on a weekend trip over to the city and we had planned to capture the sunset. Originally, we sat up on the river side of downtown and then I spotted this amazing location to capture more of the vibrant city!Time
We arrived in downtown Nashville during Friday evening rushhour. Traffic was insane and all I could think about was trying to find a spot before sunset. We arrived about 5:15 pm in the midst of the National Rifle Associations annual convention that brought 50,000 people to the heart of downtown Nashville. This shot was our second setup and we waited for the perfect light!Lighting
I knew that the river was going to be reflecting all the beautiful colorful lights of the heavily tourist covered area. I wanted to capture that. I was originally hoping to capture a sunset photo followed by a bluehour photo. I had recently been to Europe where I had fallen in love with blue hour. We setup on the bridge and waited for nearly two hours until the overcast sky popped with beautiful sunset colors! I knew that we were in the works of a capturing a beautiful image.Equipment
I shoot with a Canon 5d Mark III with a Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 L lens on a Manfrotto tripod with a hand held intervalometer.Inspiration
The shot was a perfect time to spend with my daughter who was on a trip to play in two state league soccer games. She and I love spending time together and I told her the whole trip we were planning on capturing downtown Nashville at sunset and bluehour. Little did we know that we would be arriving in downtown the starting day of the largest convention that Nashville has ever hosted, the NRA. Approximately 50,000 attendees were sprawling throughout downtown and everywhere we looked another NRA neck badge was able to be seen. Downtown was filled with exactly what you would expect....amazing country music! As we waited literally about 4 hours total, we listened to the sounds of country music coming off of Broadway Avenue and the sounds of a formal event coming off of the newly built Bridge Building a few hundred feet to our right. The sounds made for a perfect backdrop to capture this amazing cityscape!Editing
Post processing was done in Lightroom. I took this photo using bracketed shots to make sure that all the highlights and the shadows were properly captured. The bracketed shot was touched up to properly expose for the amazing colors in the sky. I then synced the remaining images to the same settings and used a try in Lightroom to "Edit in" HDR Pro in Photoshop. This process essentially creates a SUPER-RAW image with more data to provide the flexibility of opening up the shadows and cutting down the highlights. I do not retouch anything in Photoshop/Adobe Raw. If you select 32-bit, it removes all options and I simply save the file and it appears in the Lightroom filmstrip view. I think retouch the "Super-RAW" image by opening up the shadows and cutting down the highlights. Typically I do highlights at -100 and shadows at +100. I added a touch of sharpening and contrast and verified my white balance until I got to my final image.In my camera bag
I typically have a Canon 5d Mark III with the following lens: Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 L Sigma 50mm f/1.4 Canon 135mm f/2.0 L Canon 24-105 f/4.0 L Canon 580 ex ii Speedlite Flash Sigma 2x TC Sigma 1.4 TC Canon IntervalometerFeedback
This bridge is an amazing place to photograph downtown Nashville. Get there an hour or so before sunset which can be checked on weather.com or several different apps. It is very important to be setup using a tripod and hopefully a heavy duty one. The bridge will bounce a little as the wind blows and as people pass by crossing. Make sure to setup in a firm location to prevent camera shake. Lightroom just released an HDR option yesterday in their update so Photoshop may no longer be necessary to merge the images to HDR. I haven't messed with the new option much. You will want to take bracketed shots since there is so much contract difference between the sky and natural lighting on the river. Manual mode is good or Aperture priority. I used a f/8.0 here in Aperture priority with a +/- EV. I did some with auto EV and some with +/- 1 EV. Lastly, not a requirement but I would suggest a weekend so you can enjoy the music! I can't wait to see what you come up with! Please send me a message with your captures!
