Nashville 2013

Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries and is home to a large number of colleges and universities. Reflecting the city's position in state government, Nashville is home to the Tennessee Supreme Court’s courthouse for middle Tennessee. It is also known as a center of the music industry…earning it the nickname "Music City".
Nashville has a consolidated city-county government which includes six smaller municipalities in a two-tier system. As of the 2010 census the population of Nashville, not including the semi-independent municipalities, stood at 601,222. The population of Nashville as a whole, including all municipalities, was 626,681. Nashville is the second largest city in Tennessee, after Memphis, and the fourth largest city in the Southeastern United States.

During my short time in Nashville, I found it to be a pretty cool city...definitely living up to its nickname as “Music City”.  Although I didn’t know much about Nashville outside of the “Grand Ole Opry” building and being the Country Music capital of the World, the “centerpiece”, and most exciting part of Nashville for me was Downtown walking up Broadway. Seeing the small shops, lots of country music clubs, souvenir stores, many cowboy boot shops, a couple hillbilly-type restaurants and the throngs of  people really made Nashville fun for me! I started my brief shoot walking across the Shelby Street pedestrian bridge looking over the Cumberland River.  To my right was LP Field, home of the Tennessee Titans football team.  To my left was the famous Nashville Riverfront, with a great view of the Nashville Skyline. Behind me was the Korean Veterans Memorial Bridge, with another great view of the Riverfront. This bridge reminded me of the Hoan Bridge in Milwaukee. The weather was kinda chilly for what I thought Nashville would be, which explained why there wasn’t many people out near the  Riverfront.

While walking around, I came across the Schermerhorn Symphony Center where I saw two very interesting statues I had fun shooting. The “Birth of Apollo” statue and fountain was great because of its uniqueness and interesting nudity. The “Recording Angel” statue in back of the Center is standing on 3 discs which represent 33, 45 & 78 rpm records and her scribe is recording a CD, paying homage to the Country Music Hall of Fame across the street, Music Row & the recording industry in Nashville. Across the street was the Country Music Hall Of Fame and Museum, which is a grande architectural structure in itself.  But as much as I loved photographing that building, it had nothing on the massive Music City Center next door, which stretched about two blocks long. Song writer’s Square on the front sidewalk has artist names and songs written by them etched in the ground.  I thought that was awesome, especially in reading the names and the songs. Time was of the essence, as it was time to leave Nashville to head back to Chicago.  I didn’t know what to expect on my first visit to Nashville, but I was pleasantly surprised! Stay tuned as I am now putting together a shoot list for Part II.