My Favorite West Side Photos Of 2023

This year I think I photographed far more West Side games than I have in years.  My goal at the start of the football season was to get to as many games as I could. I had last played football thirty years prior so I wanted to see as much football as I could this year. For some reason things worked out to where there were more games at Gordon Straley Field on Fridays when I was free. Below are a few of my favorite photos from this past season. I have not really ranked them as I have in the past. They are just in a random order. This team has photographers who cover them every week so when I show up I have no real pressure on me. I can have some fun and make whatever photos that I want to make. That is a great feeling, and I hope it results in better pictures. I am not worried about missing the big play if I am trying something out. My goal every year is to make this gallery better than the one last year. I think that I did that in 2023 so I accomplished my mission. Next year I will have a hard time topping some of these games.

 

The nice thing about seeing this team multiple times is that you start to pick up on their pregame traditions. Each game I tried to find a new way to photograph part of this ritual. It is fun though to try different lenses and ideas out over the course of the season to try and find a new way to see a moment. Next year there will be some new faces leading the team out onto the field so we will see what they choose to do.

Late in the season I busted out the old 400mm lens for a few photos. It is manual focus at this point so my hit rate is not as high. The team has a photographer though so if I do miss something it is not a big deal. When it did hit though it gave me some good photos.

I really had some fun playing with the sun as the season went on. These are four of my favorite photos using the sun during those early season games.

Part of knowing the teams routine from being at a few games was knowing little things where you could make a good photo. The Kitchel boys were always the first two players out of the locker room after halftime. I knew that I would have a little time to make an interesting photo of them as they warmed up. Here I tried to add one of the Friday night lights into the background.

The monsoon game is one that I will not forget very quickly. I went to the game knowing that it would rain. I was actually excited for the rain. A little rain actually can help make for good photos. What we got that night was more than a little rain. It was a deluge that only let up a couple of times. When it did let up it was just to a normal downpour. This is one of my favorite photos from the night.

I love these little moments during a game. You have the running back keeping the defenders hand off of him as he tries to gain more yards. This is another photo made with that 400mm lens. It makes it on here because these photos where the players are running right at you are the hardest to grab focus on manually.

The future is bright for West Side. They have some young players that I think will do big things before they leave school. I start to feel a little old when I see kids in the same grade as my oldest out on the field. I have a feeling that this freshman class will have a lot of post game celebrations ahead of them.

Before the sectional title game I was having some fun with my speed light. I worked for most of pregame dialing everything in and panning with the players. I had an idea, and I was not going to quit until I made the photo. When I saw this in the back of my camera I knew that I had made that photo in my mind.

This might have been the best high school game that I have ever been at. Thirty years ago I played in a couple of good games myself, but this comeback was really something to behold. At the half I wondered what the coaches were telling the team. The game could very well have been over then. West Side came back from 21 down to win the sectional title. It was an amazing game that I was very happy to have been there to capture some of the night.

 

As I said at the beginning this was a fun year for me when I went to West Side. With no pressure to make every picture I could try things and get a little more creative. I missed some shots over the course of the season doing that, but to me it is worth it to try and get better. I am not going to lie. Looking through my photos to make this post I really want to photograph some more football as soon as I can. August cannot come quick enough for that.