8 Best Photo Spots: Memphis to the Delta
Memphis photographs well because of the contrast: neon and blues clubs downtown, solemn history a few blocks away, and wide Mississippi River views at the edges. This base-family list adds a couple of Delta stops once you’re outside the city.
1. Beale Street, day and night
By day, the street’s ironwork and signage photograph clean and empty; after dark, the neon and crowds are the whole point. Verified venues like B.B. King’s Blues Club and Silky O’Sullivan’s make good anchor shots if you want a specific storefront in frame.
2. National Civil Rights Museum
The museum, built around the preserved Lorraine Motel, the site of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968, is a place for reflection rather than a typical photo stop. If you photograph the balcony and Room 306, do it with the same restraint you’d bring to any memorial site, not as a casual backdrop.
3. Big River Crossing
Sunrise or sunset on this free pedestrian bridge gives you the Mississippi River and the Memphis skyline in one frame, with the added novelty of ending the shot in a second state, West Memphis, Arkansas.
4. Sun Studio
The vintage equipment and neon signage inside the still-working studio (706 Union Ave) are compact but distinctive; tours run about $15 adult and allow photos of the recording room itself.
5. The Peabody Duck March
Free, daily at 11am and 5pm, the ducks marching across the lobby to the fountain at the Peabody Hotel (149 Union Ave) is a genuinely photogenic, low-effort stop worth arriving 30 minutes early for a good spot.
6. Overton Park
The park’s open lawn and the Overton Park Shell bandshell work well for a Midtown session, a quieter alternative to the downtown crowds.
7. Shelby Farms Park
At 4,500 acres, Shelby Farms has more varied light and open sky than anywhere downtown, useful if you want wider landscape shots away from architecture and neon.
8. Clarksdale’s Crossroads and Ground Zero
75-95 minutes south, Clarksdale, Mississippi has the fabled Crossroads sign at Highways 61 and 49 and the neon at the Ground Zero Blues Club, both genuinely distinctive, low-traffic photo subjects compared to anything downtown Memphis offers.
Read more: pair this with the Mid-South day trips guide , or start with Memphis, Tennessee: A First-Timer’s Base .