NEWS

Behind the Lens: Photojournalist creates time-lapse look at Nashville

Karen Kraft
kkraft@tennessean.com
The sun sets behind downtown Nashville, Tenn.

Tennessean staff photojournalist Jae S. Lee recently embarked on a quest to highlight the beauty of the city of Nashville in a different way.

Rather than just taking a single photograph of various landmarks and popular places, he decided the best way to showcase the natural beauty of Nashville was to create a time-lapse video.

It was as if Lee took a note from American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, who once wrote: "Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience."

And patience is exactly what his project would require.

Jae S. Lee, Tennessean Staff Photographer.

"I wanted to show readers what I saw," said Jae S. Lee, staff photographer for The Tennessean. "Nashville is a beautiful city; a great place to raise a family."

Lee visited about 20 locations throughout downtown Nashville, spending at least two hours taking photos at five-second intervals. Lee used the function called the intervalometer on his Nikon camera to create the time-lapse effect.

It was a large project and took hours to complete, Lee said, from getting up at the crack of dawn for the sunrise clip to late nights shooting the downtown skyline locations.

Overall, Lee photographed close to 15,000 images that he edited into 30-second clips.

"So essentially, two hours of work turned into 30-second clips, from each location," Lee said.

The completed visual presentation called The City in Motion: Nashville highlights both the allure and excitement of Music City and Lee's creative visual storytelling.

Reach Jae S. Lee at jalee@tennessean.com; on Twitter @pixjaelee; on Instagram @pixjlee and reach the entire Tennessean Visuals staff on Facebook via TennesseanPhoto.