My Ten Favorite Soccer Photos Of 2020

This was an interesting year for sports. I normally photograph many of the Purdue soccer games in addition to some high school games. This year though college soccer did not happen. I was still able to be a part of some great games at the high school level. Here are my ten favorite photos from this year.

10. This is something that I wanted to test for a while now. I bought the Sony 200-600mm lens in the middle of last football season, but it didn’t arrive until soccer and football were over. I was looking forward to trying it out on baseball and softball, but of course that never happened. Here I was happy with my images with it. With one lens I could still get things downfield, but I could also zoom out for a photo like this one.

9. This year was the year of the blowout. It seemed like I saw a lot of mismatches this year which meant that the emotion that I love just didn’t happen. This might have been my best emotion photo of the year.

8. This is one of those moments when you really see just how violent soccer can be. This young man took a hard hit, but then scored a goal shortly after this. He is also the only player to appear on this countdown twice.

7. When the ball bounces in soccer you can make a tighter photo to show more of the player. Normally the ball is on the foot so you have to go full body. When the ball bounces though you can show the athlete off a bit more.

6. Here Coach Clouse fires up his team at the half. Those Harrison uniforms look amazing against the blue hour sky. Playing at the football field allowed me to get behind the action and get coach up against that sky. Harrison has a nice soccer field, but my pictures at night seemed to be better on the football field.

5. I love how this photo shows both grace and violence in one photo. For some reason I just like how this one turned out.

4. Lexi Fraley just has a different gear than the other players. She was fun to watch play for Harrison this season. It is fun to photograph a player that is this good. She is headed to Ball State so maybe I will get to see her play again if the Cardinals ever come to Purdue.

3. Here the young man from photo #8 shows up again on the countdown. He was a hard worker that seemed to always be in on the action. Here he gets his head on the ball just before the goalie can get to it. I love this little moment.

2. During a night game I sat on the goalie side of the field to make some photos of the goalie. You don’t always get rewarded doing this, but on this night I was rewarded with two amazing saves by him. I couldn’t decide on one for the countdown so I have put both of them on here.

1. This is from my first game of the year. I had just switched to my 400mm lens which I hadn’t used in a while. I was lucky enough to have this header happen right in front of me. I just love the power in this photo. It has been my favorite photo of the year since that night.

There are my ten favorite soccer photos from last year. It was a weird year, but I was still able to get out to a few soccer matches. This year I hope things are back to normal in the fall as I miss the Folk Field sunsets.