My Favorite Photos From The Road In 2023

This was the first time in a while when I left the state. I have gone from someone who travelled all of the time to being pretty content with where I am. One thing that I missed in that time though was exploring new places. This year I started getting back out there to try and find new places to make photos of. I have done an amazing job making photos basically in town for four years. Now it is time to get back out there to make photos.

I love this photo. It combines a lot of what I worked on this year all into one place. I spent part of the year learning film photography and then emulating that film in Lightroom. Here is one of the presets that I liked used on a digital image. The location in Reynolds is also awesome.

I made this photo on the way back from Indy. I stopped in Lebanon, Indiana with a sky that was pretty cool. I used Portra 400 and my Canon AE-1 to make this photo. This just has everything that you expect from small town Indiana all in one photo. I love how this turned out.

This is the kind of photos that I like to make in big cities. You have the beautiful art on the wall against the parking sign for the lot in front of it. I like the way that this tells you big city, and even better I like how my daughter spotted this on our walk.

Later today you will see this photo again. This whole week I have been looking at some of the small town post office buildings. This is one of the more unique buildings that I have seen so far with that awesome mural on the side wall of the building.

This trip was an audible from the start. I was on 52 heading to Indy when I saw the blue water tower of Clarks Hill. I drove to the town to see what I could find. I ended up finding a gold mine of photos that have been on the blog in the days since. This one of the old car lot is my favorite. I just like how everything worked out here.

This photo involved a lot of luck. I was down the road in Otterbein for a family get together. I went out a little early to make some photos as it was an amazing day with the sun out. Sometimes in the winter any day with sun is a good one. I decided to stop by the Pine Village gym to make some photos of it. It was an amazing old gym that I never was able to see the inside of. the day after I made this image it was gone. I really cut this one close.

This is something that I used to do all of the time when we travelled. I would make an image from the town, and a texture that I found somewhere in our hotel. I would marry the two photos together in Photoshop for one photo that told a story of the trip. I like how this one turned out.

We can thank Taylor Swift for this photo. With the roads shut down after the Roebling Bridge it slowed traffic down just enough for me to walk out and make this image. I should have walked further up for one other idea, but there was still a little traffic from time to time, and I didn’t want to end up out there with cars coming. Maybe next time Taylor plays Cincy I can make the photo.

This photo really sparked my idea to get out and photograph more of the small towns around me. My daughter was playing softball in this town, and I used the last light of the day after her game was over to make this photo. I started to wonder what other little towns had I never heard of that were great for photography. The rest of this list is probably due to this night.

This was one of the hottest days of the year when I made this photo.  The sun had already set, but the light was great to finally make this photo of this door in Otterbein.

I made this photo on my way out of the state for the first time since 2019. That is hard to believe that it had been that long, but absolutely true. The week the pandemic hit we were planning on where I was going to follow the Purdue women’s team in the NCAA Tournament. Over three years later I finally left the state. This is a simple iPhone photo, but I like the way that it symbolizes that trip. You have the highway with an RV on it, and the gas station where I made the photo from. Those clouds would bring some rain right after I made this photo.

Coming home from Terre Haute after seeing Indiana State win a NCAA Tournament game I stopped in Williamsport to make this photo. I have been to the town before, but never stopped to make this photo. I was always fixated on making photos of the waterfall in town. Here I finally stopped to make a photo of the courthouse.

I have to end this list with a stadium photo, but no game happening in it. This year we travelled to Cincinnati, Ohio to be a part of the Taylor Swift Eras Tour that was there. On night one we joined many people outside listening to the concert. On the second night my oldest and a friend went inside of the stadium, and we were outside again. The great part about seeing the show outside two nights in a row is that I knew what to expect. I had a spot picked out, and I made this photo a Karma the final song was playing. It is technically a stadium photo, and a great night and weekend for our family. That was a very fun trip that I was happy to make a photo of. The fun part about this photo is that I made a similar photo to this on night one. I knew to wait in this spot though for the finale for an even better photo.

This was a fun year getting back out on the road to make photos. This list is not what it once was back in the day, but it is far better than the last few years when I barely left the county. This year hopefully the list grows and I can add a couple of more states to the list.