My Favorite Photos From The Harrison High School 2022-2023 Athletic Year

This past year was a fun one making photos of the Harrison high school athletes. It started on a whim and led to people asking me to come to more and more events. In the past I made a few photos at the school, but this year I made far more than ever before. As I write this I have already photographed parts of a couple of scrimmages this year so I hope that I can get to more events than last year. There are some sports out there that I still have not really photographed that much so hopefully next year this list is a little bigger. I have kind of gone back to the numbering system, but you will quickly see that the order doesn’t matter, and the number 23 is just a fun idea. There are far more than 23 photos in this countdown. It is really hard to boil an entire year into just 23 photos.

23. One theme that will repeat on this countdown is having fun. For some reason it seems like the celebrations are always good when I am at these games. Across the sports the players get that these games are fun, and they have fun playing them. As a photographer you can’t ask for more than that. When you photograph so many events in a year you want something that makes it fun for you. The way that these teams play makes it very fun, and keeps me coming back for more. Here is a photo from a fun soccer game last year.

22. One thing that I like to do is to try and bring people places that they cannot go. You can show a little behind the scenes of the games and what the players are experiencing. Here I had a couple of photos of Cal Gick before the games even start. Pregame is a fun time to make photos, and here I was able to capture a little bit of what I see during that time.

21. This was my first year seeing the sword game in person. I have heard about the game and even seen a few photos, but I really wanted to be a part of it. This past year I was finally able to do just that, and it lived up to my expectations. It was a fun game that started and ended with a huge sword. This is a very cool rivalry that I hope I can photograph for years to come.

20. The light at the House of Clouse can be great during the year. Here I lucked out with some action in front of me as the last light of the day was in the sky. This year I would like to have some more fun with this idea as the year goes on.

19. This was the first year of the Harrison boys volleyball team. They started off strong winning both games that I saw them play. I was lucky enough to be at the first win for the school and their sectional win. They have a ton of fun playing the game, and that makes volleyball photos easy to make. Here is one of my favorite moments from the sectional win.

18. Speaking of sectional wins I was lucky enough to be at the sectional win for the Raider tennis team this past spring. This team played loose and fun throughout the match.

17. This year I decided to try and capture the runout at the football games from a different angle every game. I didn’t want to just keep making the same photo over and over. I made this photo early in the season, and I knew right away it would be hard to top. Everything kind of worked in my favor here.

16. The lights at the softball stadium give off an old feel. When I made this photo I thought that it had a very film look to it. It is one of those things that maybe only I like, but this is my top 23 list so it gets a spot.

15. Normally during basketball season you look to the bench for a reaction shot during big moments or near the end of the games. This year I learned that with the Harrison girls team you need to always pan back to the bench. They have so much fun playing the game that there always seems to be a photo there. Here I put a few of my favorite bench photos from the year up. This coming year I will have to remind myself to keep looking over to the bench.

14. Sometimes you get lucky with the timing of a photo. I would have been happy with this photo without the sun flare on it, but it just made it a little bit cooler to me at the time. I love those orange baseball jerseys, and I am always hoping that the team is wearing them when I am on my way to the game. Here I lucked out all around.

13. On senior day for the girls soccer team I had some great light for a short period of time. I was trying to put myself in the best position to use that light. Here I made a photo that I really liked from that brief window. This year I would like to try and get to some more games during that golden light.

12. I really liked this photo when I saw it on the court. I was hoping that the moment would last long enough for me to get over and make it. I was lucky that it turned out how I saw it in my mind. I love the little moments on game day.

11. This year I never made it to as many full games for the Harrison softball team as I would have liked to. The schedule just didn’t work out. I did make it to many partial games though. With just a couple of innings to make photos I had to work a little harder, and I think that I made better photos because of that. Here is a photo that I really liked when I made of the Raider catcher Ava on deck. The light was perfect with a great sky to work with.

10. Last year I did not make it to as many volleyball matches as I would have liked to. I love the fast nature of the sport. When you make a good photo you have earned it. Here I loved this photo from the Raider sectional win.

9. The gym at Harrison is a fun one. You have a lot of things to put into your photos. With my wide photos tried to keep that in mind and put as much of the signage on the walls into the photos as possible. A little history with the action. This is one of my favorite photos that I made with a wider angle and my camera on the ground.

8. As I said above I only made it to one Harrison tennis match this past year, but I really liked what I saw. The light was perfect, and the background was very nice as well. You get a nice, clean photo when you photograph from the crowd side of the courts. I would like to play around with this a little more this coming year.

7. Another photo using those older looking lights at the softball field. They look amazing as a background, and here I was hoping that Jadyn Ramer would end the game shortly after I made this photo. She was on deck with an opportunity to do just that. Luckily for me and my photo she did hit the game winner and this was kind of a cool player of the game photo.

6. Speaking of lights the pregame light show for Harrison basketball was fun to experiment with this year. I tried to photograph it from all angles as the season went on. I ended up liking these photos photographing into the light the best though. They have a rock concert quality to them that I really like. I had no idea that they did this during my first game on the court. Of course I was looking forward to it the rest of the season after seeing it.

5. The Raider teams not only have fun playing the game, but they play the game hard as well. One of my favorite baseball players to photograph this year was Sammy Hallada. He seemed to give me something every time that I pointed the camera at him. This is one of my favorite photos of Sammy as he slides into third base.

4. A beautiful day for softball here as the Raider softball team stands for the anthem. This stadium is oriented just right to get some amazing light as the sun sets. This year I wasn’t able to take advantage of that very often, but I tried to make the most of it when I could.

3. This year I used my floor remote more than I had in years. It was a great way to make a wider image that told more of the story of the game. I could make two photos at once which really helps build out the gallery. Here are a few of my favorites from this season.

2. When the season started for the Raiders girls basketball team I knew that I wanted to make photos of them at some point. At an event one of the players walked by and said that I should come to their game the next night. I did and it was a great decision. It was a fun team to watch and cover. My last game with them was their sectional win at Lafayette Jeff. The team had not won a sectional since 1986. I was still in elementary school waiting for the new Huey Lewis and the News album to come out. It was really cool to be able to document some of that historic run. I thought that this photo summarized the season very well. They had fun and won some hardware.

When this football season started one of the things that I was looking forward to was photographing Omarion Dixon when Indiana State came to Row Ade to play. He was fun to cover at Harrison as a star football player. That would never happen as Dixon was involved in a terrible car wreck. We were all praying that he would make it out of the hospital so it was truly amazing when we saw him at a football game. It was the night before Indiana State would play in town at Purdue. It was amazing watching the community and the football team rally for Dixon. They brought his jersey out with them for every game. They were playing with a purpose. It was really cool to see him get that ovation in person. I can’t imagine what it must have meant to him. That date on the football field still stands. I can’t wait to photograph Omarion again.

So I didn’t quite narrow it down to 23 photos, but this was the best that I could do. As I said at the start the order really does not matter here. I tried to highlight what made this past year so much fun. This coming year I would love to do much more. With that being said you can help with that. The schedules change and things like scrimmages are not always published. Just a note to let me know that you have an event coming up goes a long way to making sure that I know about it. This past weekend an off handed remark is the only way that I knew that soccer and football were scrimmaging. I cannot make it to everything, but I try and get to as much as I can. While we wait for the fall season to really kick in below are some of my more sport specific posts from this past year. I really went overboard with them, but I wanted to make one gallery for each sport that felt like a large game day gallery.