A Look Back At The 2022 Purdue Basketball Season

This is usually the time of year when I post my favorite images from the past year. This year though I was only credentialed for one game so that is hard to do. You can look at that gallery here. If I could only get into one game this year before the season started it would have been that Michigan State game. I always love the t-shirt game so it was great to be in there making photos. No matter how the season ended this was a great season for Purdue. They spent many weeks in season ranked number one. They won both the regular season and tournament titles for the Big Ten. They also beat a very crowded field in their preseason tournament. As I write this it looks like they will also have the national player of the year on the team. This was a historic season in many aspects. That loss on Friday hurt. As a fan it hurt. As a person who knows some of the people involved around the team it hurt. Seeing the horrible things that I did online though I can’t help but wonder if some fans have some perspective. Who do you think that it hurt the most? You the person having a couple of beers watching the game or the players who have put everything that they have into it to get to where they did. It was one bad game. It just so happened to be the last game of the year. Years down the road we will look at these banners in the rafters and remember a very fun season. We will see three new banners hung because of this season. I don’t know that anyone fans thought that was possible to start the season. This is the beginning of something really great.

How Can I Photograph In Mackey Again?

This is a question that I have been asking myself. For years I would give my photos to the athletic department even if I was only getting paid for a couple of games a season. At the time I was told that I was crazy for doing so, but I thought that I was helping out which is all that I ever wanted. I have always been a fan of helping to build something rather than taking. When you are photographing for the wire you are basically just coming in and taking things. I wanted to help build something. A couple of years ago I was told that if I didn’t help out Purdue during a time when I had other plans that I would have trouble getting passes. At the time talking to people in the department they told me that it could never happen. Here we are though with passes being very hard to come by. I think that looking back maybe I was really wrong all along. I should have been thinking about myself instead of trying to help out. With that in mind I have to spend this off season trying to get a path into the stadium. Watching people that I have photographed alongside making those photos in the confetti was torture. I really think that if this team does what I think it can do next season they might be doing the same thing again. I want to be down on the court when they do. If you have an organization that needs a photographer I am willing to help you out. I have a couple of options right now, but I am looking for something that is more making than taking.