My Favorite Wrestling Photos Of 2023

Wrestling is a sport that I don’t get to photograph much of. It might also be my weakest sport because of that fact. Every time that I photograph wrestling I try and get a little better at finding those peak action moments. This year I had more chances to photograph wrestling than I have had in a long time. I worked for Purdue three times in 2023 making wrestling photos. It has been a while since I could say that as well.  

We will start with something that I have tried to work on across all sports this year. Finding detail photos during an event.

I love the way that Purdue wrestling intros their players. The way that they pump each player up before they are announced make for good photos.

In a quiet moment way before his first match this wrestler takes a moment for himself. I was walking around the many mats out for the Kyle Osborn Memorial tournament looking for these moments. I was really lucky with a fun one here. Aiden would go on to place first in his class that day so it came back around for a full circle day making photos of him.

In a regular season dual you rarely get a lot of emotion. A last second win though can bring that out. Here I was lucky that it came my way. I was contemplating moving to the other side of the mat just before this match. I am glad that I didn’t do that. I photographed a couple of duals that day, and this was my favorite image from both of them.

A week ago I posted about how important my short time knowing Tyler Trent was to me. Every time that I see the hammer down cancer logo it really makes me think about what Tyler has done for this school. With the singlets being worn for charity I made a tight photo of it to kind of show it off a bit.

I will be honest that I don’t always know what is a good wrestling move versus what looks good to my camera. This is one of those moments that I thought looked good for my camera, but who knows if it is actually a good wrestling move. I liked the moment though so it appears on the countdown.

This is a moment just like the one above. I really like the way the wrestlers look here. Hopefully it is a good move as well.

The blood on Ethan Popp’s forehead here just makes this picture for me. Wrestling is a sport that combines many sports that I cover. You need endurance as well as strength and toughness. Here that kind of all comes together.

I have been in a packed Holloway Gymnasium many times over the years. It is usually for volleyball though. Here with Holloway packed for wrestling I took some time out during a match to make a wide image.

Here is a small moment before a match of the Kyle Osborn Memorial tournament back in December. With matches going on around on the other mats this weight class could not start just yet. I was watching this athlete walk around and moved to position him with the logo over his shoulder. With the warmups on it is more detail photos from the day.

Those are my favorite wrestling photos from this past year. As I said above I photographed more wrestling this year than I have in years. The sport is still kind of foreign to me, but I am starting to find ways into it as far as photography is concerned. This was my first year making high school wrestling photos. I have been doing this for a while now, and it is hard to believe that I had never photographed wrestling at the high school level before. Maybe this year I can get to a few more matches.