My Favorite Football Photos Of 2023

This was a year when I wanted to see as much football as I could. It marked the thirty year anniversary of my last time playing football. I photographed football at all levels, and tried to get to as many games as I could. I saw some great games over the course of the year. The miraculous comeback by the Harrison freshman team to tie a game that was seemingly lost, the amazing sectional title game for West Side where they came from way back to win the title, and Purdue taking a couple of trophies home with them this year.

We will start things off with a photo that I did not expect to make. I was not covering Tippy Valley that day, but this young man scored and ran right to my camera to celebrate. The tube along with the blue sky helped me make a photo that I really liked. I hope that he has found this photo by now.

Before the Fresno State game at Purdue I made this photo of one of the Fresno State players getting a last minute prayer in before the start of the game. At this point not many photographers were at this end of the stadium, but I was grabbing my long lens which I had stashed under the tv stand. I had been up in the stands and was in a hurry to join everyone at the other end of the stadium. This photo was too good to pass up though. I really like the simplicity of it.

As I talked about in the opening Harrison had an amazing last second tie during their opening freshman game this year. The emotion after tying things up was to much fun. I had not planned on photographing much of this game, but I am glad that I was there that day.

There is a game that I might always call the monsoon game at West Side. I am that crazy person that was excited for a rain game. I love the way that it photographs under the Friday night lights. At some point though it even started raining harder than I was prepared for. I do like this photo though that I made that night.

Here is another photo from the Purdue football home opener. Fresno State came in and took care of business. As the clock was winding down this player was letting the Purdue student section know what he thought about them. I was not happy about what Purdue did during the game, but I was the only photographer making this photo at the time so I was happy about that.

The season opener for both Harrison and West Side was against each other. I love the blue hour light in the background of this photo. It is not my best photo of the year, but something about it has stuck with me all season long.

As the sun set early in a West Side game I made this photo of the West Side quarterback. It is a simple photo of him waiting to enter the game, but I really like how it turned out. This year I was really happy with what I was able to capture off of the field. At some point you start to realize that everyone on the sidelines can make the action photos. That is the easy part. The hard part is making those photos off of the field when they make themselves available.

In my Purdue post I talked about trying to make different photos from those around me. That was never more important than this year. I was shooting for a wire service that is not very well known. There are people from very well known wire services all around me. I spent the year trying to be very different from them hoping that I could kind of differentiate myself from them. A photo like this is a good example of that. Going a little wider to allow the fans to play a bigger part of the photo was a little different than anyone around me.

This photo is here because of the light. It would have been an okay photo for most of the season. With that last light of the day hitting the players though it becomes a really fun photo for me.

Every year I hear people talking about how they want to photograph at higher levels. I always say that you can make good photos anywhere. In fact at high school games you have better access and more chances to make good photos. Here is a JV football photo on the list. Earlier on the list was a photo from a freshman football game. You can make good photos anywhere.

Part of working for the wire is covering both teams. When there is someone like Marvin Harrison Jr. on the other team that is a fun job. I spent a lot of time behind the Ohio State offense waiting for this moment. I wanted a photo of Marvin hauling a pass in. I got my photo, and I was happy with what I was finally able to get.

I was able to photograph Purdue hoisting a couple of trophies this year. Above they hold up the cannon trophy and the old oaken bucket.

I spent some of this year at Ross Ade Stadium trying to work the new Tiller Tunnel into my photos. This might be my favorite of those attempts.

I love taking advantage of the late day light and awesome skies at a high school game. By the end of the year that all disappears so you have to take advantage of it while you can. Here I made a portrait during pre game warm ups. I really like how this one turned out.

Freshman Dillon Thieneman really made an impact this season for Purdue. Here he celebrates a big impact on the Fresno State punt returner. If he can keep up this level of play we will be talking about one of the greats to play at Purdue when it is all said and done.

Part of the fun of gameday at Ross Ade is trying to capture the runout. This year I tried a few angles on it to capture all of the new features of the stadium. This year I tried something new as well. The last of the three photos from made with an old film camera and my trusty Canon 11-24mm lens on it. It was awesome to find a use for that lens again. This is an awesome stadium, and it got even better in the off season. It was fun to try and show it off a little as the season went on.

This was an idea that I worked on for a while pregame. I really wanted this idea that was in my head to come alive. I kept getting close, but not quite there. Here everything worked in my favor to make a picture that I really liked.

After a Harrison sectional game win I was trying to find some emotion in the rain. Here I lucked out with the emotion and placement of the stadium light in the background. I knew I wanted it in the background, but with everything moving you can’t predict where it will end up. I really liked how this photo turned out. These are frantic moments after a game so I was happy to make something good during that time.

I don’t know that I will ever be able to put into words what Tyler Trent meant to me. He was a special person that was taken far too soon. What he was able to do in his short time at Purdue though was amazing. This year marked the five year anniversary of the Tyler Trent game against Ohio State. As Purdue took on the Buckeyes again they had a special decal on their helmet to honor Tyler.

Deion Burks was a fun player to watch in a Boiler uniform. Here he makes a nice catch against Indiana. I love that large P from the new tunnel in the background. A photo like this is a lot of luck, but for this list I will pretend that it was all skill.

This had to be one of the best high school games that I have ever seen in person. West Side was getting beat badly at the half. There is no way around that fact. They were getting beat on the line which is never a good sign for the second half. They never gave up though and they stormed back to win in overtime. This was an amazing comeback that came down to a play at the line as it turned out. West Side won that battle and the game.

I might have put more photos in here than I had intended to. This was a fun year covering football though. I love that I have photos from freshman football up to college football on here. I tried to get out to photograph as much as I could this year. I love this sport, and no matter how much I get to photograph every year it never seems to be enough. I have already been booked for a couple of football games next fall so the excitement is already there even though we have a couple of seasons ahead of football season.