Welcome to our Creative Spotlight, where we’re highlighting the talented creatives who make up the community here at South 40.

This month’s Creative Spotlight is Austin Peckham of Create Nash, a full-service video production company boasting clients such as Sony, Universal, and Ford. We met Austin during a shoot with Dylan Brady, a talented country artist who shot his music video right here at South 40!

What inspired you to become a photographer? What keeps you inspired?
So I started doing video when I first moved to Nashville 3 years ago. I moved here as a country artist and didn’t have a way to make money and support myself. I started shooting a bunch of small videos for my friends for free. Friends told other friends and eventually it led to some bigger opportunities. Those opportunities led to being able to buy new equipment, and things just kept leading to more work and friendships with artists around town. Since I started I’ve been fortunate enough to work with hundreds of artists on various projects. What keeps me inspired is music. I feel like as long as I have things going on in the music industry, I’ll stay inspired.

What’s one of the videos you’ve created that you’re most proud of?
I think my favorite project so far was being able to recreate an entire western world in Arizona for an artist named Ashley Ryan. I’ve been fortunate enough to work on great projects with some notable people, but this project in particular really opened my eyes to what you can turn a set into. We set the time in the 1900’s with all western wardrobe. Lots of extras. It was amazing.

What creatives inspire you?
Truthfully I don’t watch much inside my industry. But I get really inspired by certain movies. I try to study how stories are told and then put my own spin on it.

How did you get into doing videography full-time?
Really by default. I didn’t have a choice and started to see people coming to me to work with me. So I took the leap and dove into it full time.

Any advice for fellow creatives?
I think my start is so true to what it takes to make yourself stand out in a town full of so many creatives. I worked on hundreds of projects for free or cheap starting out. It created a really cool viral effect to where all of my business since day 1 has been 100% referral.

You can check out the video Austin shot at South 40 here. We’re honored to know him and proud to have him as part of the South 40 creative community.

Connect with Austin: