When It Rains It Pours

Ohio State has not had the best of luck in Ross Ade Stadium in recent memory. I have been on the field a few times with fans in the past few years when they have come to town. This Ohio State team was not going to be stormed though. They came out and just put it to this Purdue team. At one point the score was 20-0 and I felt like it was 50-0. They were just kind of doing whatever they wanted against the Boilers. Hopefully this is the bottom of the Walters era. I really do think that he is the right guy at Purdue. He just needs some time to get some guys in here.

Photographing Marvin Harrison Jr.

One cool thing about what I am doing now is that I can focus on whatever I want at the games. In a game like this one where the highlights were few for Purdue I could find other things to photograph. One of those subjects was Marvin Harrison Jr. He really was everything that was advertised coming into the game. Here I sat behind the offense to make this photo of him catching the ball. You normally have to spend a lot of time to make a photo like this one, but I got really lucky on the first drive that I photographed him.

Thinking Of Tyler

The week leading up to the game brought back a lot of memories. If you were around Purdue football five years ago then you know the story of Tyler Trent. He was a bright star that faded too fast. I don’t know that I have ever met anyone as brave as he was. This past week hearing him talk again via old interviews reminded me of just what a force of nature he was. My theme for the week was obviously things with Tyler in them. Above are a few things that I found on the day that reminded me of Tyler. I only had a few brief encounters with him, but he changed the way that I looked at life. He did a lot for all of us in his short time on this earth.

The Fumble

This might be my favorite series of images from the day. It starts off with Ohio State quarterback Devin Brown running around end. As he dove for the end zone the ball is knocked free from his hands. It then bounces into the rear of an Ohio State player before being scooped up by Kydran Jenkins of Purdue. I got five images for the gallery from one play. It is not often that you see that.

The Fans

With the Purdue students waving their poms before big plays I had an idea for a photo. I framed it up with the flag in the background and with a shutter speed of 1/15th of a second I tried to blur the students poms. It is an abstract idea, but I wanted something a little different. It took a couple of tries before the flag cooperated and paused just long enough to appear stationary.

Photographing The Eclipse

Above you can see my favorite photo of the eclipse during the game. Can’t see the photo? That is okay. We couldn’t see the eclipse. My pregame runout photo was based on the eclipse, and I had thoughts of spending some time during the game putting it into photos. Of course the closer to gamely that we got the more it became clear that it would not happen. I held out hope that a small window would open up at some point. This would have been a unique event with an eclipse during a football game. Maybe sometime in the future I can put some of the ideas I came up with to use.

More Photos From The Game

As I said above this is new territory for me. In the past when Purdue was beaten badly I would struggle to put together a gallery. In my early years on the field that was common and I think I am a better photographer for it. I learned to look for other moments than the big play to fill space. Now though if one team is dominating I can cheat that way more often. I am now guaranteed to photograph the winning team every week. That is a cool feeling, and kind of freeing in a way. Here are some of my favorite photos from the day.