The Holston

The Holston stands on the corner of Gay Street and Clinch Avenue in downtown Knoxville, a fourteen-storey tower from 1913. It went up as the Holston National Bank and was the tallest building in the city for years. The bottom three floors were built using Tennessee marble and then the design shifted to pale brick with terra cotta trim. The building looks east and takes morning light square on, which warms the marble and picks out the column details at the base. You'll have to set up on the far side of the street for the full height in one frame paired with a rich blue sky. If you prefer detail work you can stay close and shoot up if you want the columns and the carved entrance to use leading lines to pull the eye up the building. From along Clinch Avenue you can still see the old Holston National Bank name carved into the stone above the doors. Evening is fun to experiment as the lights of downtown come on around the building. It is now private condos, so you will only be able to shoot from the public sidewalks and roads. Gay Street is the main downtown strip, so you can easily continue along the street to continue your photography adventure with the theatres and storefronts running north from here. (Knoxville, Tennessee, USA)