A Beautiful Night In Ross Ade Stadium

You really could not have asked for better weather for a football game than we had on Saturday night. It was a beautiful night for football. My night started off on a sour note as my old 400mm lens decided that it was just done working for me. I had to quickly adjust and change the way that I was going to cover the game. At the end of the day though I made some photos that I would not have out of necessity and it allowed me to move a little quicker on the sidelines. A photo like the one above I would have been very tight for, and I love the crowd celebrating with Hudson Card in the background. The beauty about what I am doing now is that I don’t have a list of photos that I have to make every game. I am free to make the photos that I want to make. That freedom allowed me to really have some fun Saturday night even being down a lens.

Trying To Recreate History

Earlier in the week I had talked about the photo that originally got me down on the field. I made it nearly ten years to the day of the one above. With another night game being played I wanted to make a photo from a spot that would show off a new element of the stadium, but also from a new element of the stadium. This little deck was brand new and a new vantage point. I don’t think that it has the same feel as that older photo, but I really do like how it turned out. With all of the new elements of the stadium I plan to photograph the run out from somewhere new every game this year. I also plan to never do it from the pile of photographers on the field. The goal is a new photo every week from a new spot. If you want to buy the photo just click on the photo above to go directly to my website where you can purchase a copy of it.

A New View For Me

In 2005 I sat in a similar place to this in the old bleachers when Purdue took on Notre Dame. Of course those bleachers are now gone, and this is now the student section. I climbed to the top to see what my view could be from here. While I was up there I decided to stay for the National Anthem and make a photo. The sky was interesting, and I knew that it could be a cool photo. With everything pretty still I decided to try a panoramic image. I like how this turned out. I need to figure out how to get a panoramic image of the runout from this same spot.

A Little Luck

I was scoping out a place to make some photos from when I saw this scene in front of me. I was not there to make this photo, but if you climb to the top of the stadium sometimes you get rewarded with something extra. The last light of the day was hitting the Purdue flag and the new Tiller Tunnel. This is a photo that will never sell, but I really like it.

Bring It Dan!

Just before Shout in between the third and fourth quarters I saw Tim Stratton and his legendary helmet. I had this vision of Purdue having a student next to him just before he started talking. He would hand the helmet to the student who would run off with it while he was introducing the song. Of course that didn’t happen and at first I was upset that this fan fiction would not come true. It would have been a fun way to spice up a tired tradition. What we got instead was one of the best intros to Shout since Dave Shondell brought the thunder several years ago. Dan gave it all just like he did as a coach at Purdue. I was lucky that I stuck around that corner to make this photo. I missed a Syracuse touchdown at the other end because of it, but it was worth it to me to get one last photo of Dan. It was frustrating to me that I was the only one who thought that this was important enough of a moment to photograph.

Local Boys Staying Local

Friday night I was at the West Side homecoming game where they were celebrating 100 years of football. It made sense that I would find a couple of West Side boys on Saturday night to make photos of them at the next level. Above are a couple of the photos that I liked of two of the West Side kids on the Purdue roster. It is really cool to photograph an athlete for four years and then get to see them four another four as they go through college. You basically see them go from kids to men in that time.

A Long Day

Saturday was a long day for me. I started the day off with a JV football game at Harrison. Then I walked over to the Harrison soccer field to watch the boys soccer team play. Then it was back over to the Harrison football field to see the Harrison girls soccer team play. I had thought about just seeing parts of these games, but they were all so fun I stayed the entire games. Of course the night ended in Ross Ade Stadium. I photographed for over 12 hours on the day, but man I had fun doing it. Below are my galleries from those games if you want to give them a look.

JV Football

Boys Soccer

Girls Soccer

More Photos From The Game

It is always fun making images in Ross Ade Stadium. I had a long day, but it was a very rewarding one. Here are a few of my favorites from the day.