Photographing MBA Engineer's Coca-Cola Amphitheater in Birmingham, AL.
There’s a short window in Birmingham right after the sun drops, maybe twenty minutes, that’s when everything starts to line up. The sky goes deep blue, the air cools off a bit, and buildings begin to shine.
That is when I photographed the new Coca-Cola Amphitheater.
Instead of blasting the place with floodlights, the building comes alive through its own lighting. Warm light traces the roofline, washes across the concrete, and wraps the seating bowl in a way that feels intentional, not flashy. At that moment, the amphitheater did not feel brand new or staged. It felt settled, like it already belongs here.
This venue seats around 8,000 people and fills a gap Birmingham has had for a while. It’s big enough for major touring acts, but still intimate enough that you don’t feel far removed from the stage. When I was there, the goal wasn’t just to document the structure,iIt was to show what this place adds to the city.
The design leans into Birmingham’s industrial roots without trying to soften them. Steel is steel. Concrete is concrete. The canopy stretches over the seating bowl in a way that’s both functional and visually strong. Nothing feels hidden or overly polished, and I hope that comes through in the photos.
Details matter in a project like this. The repeating lines of the steel canopy, the way the lighting sits inside the structure, the balance between heavy materials and open air…all of it works together. From a photographer’s standpoint, that makes the building readable. You don’t have to force the angles or hunt for meaning, it’s already there.
One of the challenging aspects about photographing performance venues is that they’re designed for people to be in them. When they’re empty, you have to rely on light, geometry, and atmosphere to tell the story. Twilight helps with that more than anything else.
During twilight, the sky still holds color, but it’s dark enough for the building’s lighting to show up properly and highlights stay controlled. Shadows keep their detail and it’s also the closest you can get to how the space feels right before a show, when the crowd hasn’t arrived yet but the energy is building.
The amphitheater sits within the Birmingham CrossPlex area, which has been evolving steadily over the last several years. Projects like this don’t just give people somewhere to go on a Friday night. They bring attention, foot traffic, and momentum to parts of the city that haven’t always been first in line for investment.
Standing there as the sky darkened, it felt less like photographing a single building and more like documenting a moment for Birmingham: something new, solid, and well considered, settling into place.
