It’s not the most renowned of Phillip Johnson’s architectural works, but Denver’s Wells Fargo Center, known better as the “Cash Register Building,” is notable in substance and style. It’s nearly 700 feet tall and has a curved roof that looks as though half of it has slumped three or four floors. It’s not the Mile High City’s tallest building but it’s arguably its most distinctive. And it would be the focus of my first Denver drone flight.

I’ve been wanting to shoot aerial photos of that building for some time. After confirming local laws allow for flying drones amid Denver’s skyline and studying the area around 1700 Lincoln Street online, I decided a sunrise flight would be best for my intial Denver flight, figuring there wouldn’t be many cars and pedestrians about at that hour (nope: turns out lots of Denverites walk their dogs in downtown’s predawn hour). I just needed to wait for a decent window of weather.

Things came into alignment March 28. Sunrise was 6:49 a.m. and the forecast for Denver was calling for a low of 31 degrees with light winds. I rolled up to the Wells Fargo Center about 30 minutes before sunrise and was in the air 20 minutes later, staging a block north of the skyscraper.

I was a bit nervous never having flown in such a dense environment. That explains why the flight itself was relatively conservative. I kept to the east side of the building and never came close to the 1,100-foot altitude allowed by FAA regulation. I did get some nice sunrise photos but it turned out to be more of a reconnaissance flight as much as anything else.

So what, if anything, did learn from flying in the big city? For one, Denver’s got a nice skyline, especially looking westward. There are photos to be had of it maybe an hour or so after sunrise most of the buildings get hit with sunlight. That there’s an antenna on top of the roof of the Wells Fargo Center was a revelation. Finally, planning’s a good thing, but Morpheus was right: there’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. Now that I’ve dispatched that first flight among the skyscrapers, I’ll push the envelope a little further next time.