My Ten Favorite Stadium Photos From 2020

This is one thing that I am always proud of every year. I love making interesting stadium photos. This past year I may have made a more diverse list than normal. There are all kinds of phenomena here. You have lightning, comets, the space station, rainbows, a supermoon and sunsets. Without some sports happening at all I was still able to get some stadiums on this list. This year will be hard to top this list, but I will have fun trying.

10. This is a photo that I have wanted to make for a while now. At an event where I didn’t have a swimmer for a while I was finally able to climb up and make this. We have a super cool pool and I was glad to make a picture to show it off. Of course they have painted it since that time so I get to do it all over again.

9. The Boilermaker statue is technically not a stadium, but it sits next to a couple. When things were shut down it was an easy place to get to so that I could make a quick photo. Out of all of these the star trails photo is probably my favorite because it took the longest to make. All of them were pretty cool though and a good way to get out of the house for a while.

8. Like the Boilermaker statue the John Wooden statue sits next to a stadium so it can be on the blog. Here are a couple of scenes that I liked from this year. I really need to play with the reflective nature of the statue this year.

7. I obsessed about this picture for a long time. I don’t know why. Call it COVID cabin fever. I had this idea for a photo of the P being placed at the top of the new scoreboard. I would watch the webcam obsessively waiting for the letters to arrive. When they moved into a place where they could be placed I really spent way too much time watching to make sure that I could make this picture. Things worked out, and a little history was captured.

6. Speaking of the new scoreboard I made a pretty cool star trails photo of it. When most people were at home and not traveling as much the stars were much easier to see. I tried to take advantage of that and make as many star trails photos as I could.

5. What a fun year for Bittinger Stadium photos. At the top you have the International Space Station flying overhead with the comet Neowise over the stadium as well. Then of course you have a beautiful sunset photo made with my drone. A super moon over the stadium and a rainbow round out my favorite Bittinger Stadium photos from this year. I never made it inside, but that didn’t stop me from making some memorable photos of the stadium.

4. Football during the virus was different. I made this photo during the sunset of the only night game that had a good sunset this year. I was lucky and it was picked to be in the new Forge magazine as a double truck so it found some use as well. Like a lot of photos this year it just shows a bit of history for the stadium and what we went through.

3. I really overused this vantage point of the football stadium this year. I could get to this point pretty quickly so when there was a good sunset I made sure to get here to get it. Both of these photos though were made after making other photos. I foolishly was making lightning photos on top of a parking garage before stopping at Ross Ade for one last photo. Of course it was my favorite photos of the night. The bottom photo was a quick star trail image made as the stadium was lit up to honor Morgan Burke. I love how the plane trail looks a bit like a spirit leaving.

2. Alexander Field is another stadium that I never made it inside of this year. This is the first time since the stadium opened that I could say that. I did manage to make these four images of it though that I really liked. The good news is that the cops only came two of the four times. Sometimes being the in middle of nowhere can seem suspicious until you explain what you are doing.

1. My favorite stadium photo of the year has to be this one. It is a different take on a normal stadium photo for me. It is not centered, but the action kind of is. I like the unbalanced look here. I can’t wait until this place is filled with fans again.

What a weird year. This was not the normal sports year for me, but I feel like I made better images at times because of it. Who knows what this year will bring? I don’t know when we will all get to be together in a stadium again. Hopefully soon though because fans help make the stadium photos even better. It will be fun trying to top this list this year.