My Favorite Purdue Campus Photos Of 2023

This was another fun year making photos on the campus of Purdue. I think that it was my most prolific year as far as making pictures goes. I don’t think that making more photos is always a better thing, but I think that this year I was on campus more making photos. As with any type of photography half of the battle is being there to see the unexpected. I really think that I had a good year on campus. This edition of my favorite photos might just stand up there with some of the editions of the past.

These are the types of photos that I wanted to make more of this year. It is not a grand landscape, but it is a cool moment on campus. I was not up there to see this, but it was a happy accident on the way back to my car. I saw the sun peak through the Purdue gate and knew that it could be cool. The lone bird on top was pretty cool as well.

On this night I had gone up to campus with reflection photos in might. It was really raining until I started driving to campus. It pretty much quit except for a light drizzle. My puddles would not be around, but the ground was still wet enough to reflect a little. I had some fun blurring the students walking by this location. My goal last year and into this year is to show more scenes around campus. Every campus photo does not have to be a wide, large landscape. They can be little scenes like this one.

I did a mini photowalk with my friend Tom one Saturday afternoon. I had my infrared camera with me with the idea of practicing seeing the light with it. This year I learned a fun way to edit those infrared photos to infuse a little color into them. I really like how this one turned out.

I made two photos on the 4th of July that I had wished were together. On my old cameras I could do a multi-exposure to make that happen. For some reason Sony can’t seem to figure out how to get that into the camera. It would probably require seven new menus to do so. Without the multi-exposure in camera I have to make those photos in post. Here I used Photoshop to blend my two photos together to make one that I really liked.

During freshman orientation week little scenes like this one pop up all over campus. I love this wave outside of the math building. There is a little Fibonacci spiral to the wave which I thought was very cool to be on the math building.

This is a fun new way to do my snokeh photos. I purposely put my subject the John Purdue statue very small in the frame. I was hoping that the snokeh would leave John alone giving me a different looking photo.

I love the cotton candy sunsets. Over the years I have made a few images of campus with these skies. They don’t happen often so I am always glad when I am up there on a night when they do occur.

The same subject on a different night. Here I use a couple of different cameras to capture the same blue hour scene. The top photo was made with my Sony A7RIII and my Sony 24-105mm lens.  And the bottom photo was made with my film camera. I had the Canon AE-1 with a Canon 35mm lens and CineStill 800t film. I made thee photos within minutes of each other, but it is interesting to me how different they look. It has been fun playing around with my film cameras on campus. There are so many different subjects to play around with.

We had a fun, foggy night walking around campus. I made this photo without my daughter in it, and it seemed to be missing something. My little one suggested that maybe she should skip through the photo. She was right. This was what was missing, and it was my favorite photo from that night.

There is a new entrance on campus. This area has gone through quite the transformation over the course of the last few years. At one point it was my go to spot to try and make lightning photos around the bell tower. Now though it sets up for a nice view through the gates to the bell tower. I need to spend some more time around here finding new ways to show it off.

This was a fun night on campus where I started having some fun with silhouettes. The first photo was more accident than plan. I was photographing the Armstrong statue when the light for Neil went out. I was not happy at first, but then changed up my composition to make the that you see. I am always trying to make a new photo there, and I was given a nice gift. The pharmacy building is one that I struggle with to make something interesting. It is such a unique building that the photos should be easy. I never seem to figure it out though. Here I made a photo that I really liked using the lights of the building.

The lion fountain is one of my favorite places to photograph. For years both kids have gone here to get a drink as we walk campus. My little one talks about using it on her way to class when she goes here. That would be fun to see. Here I found it with some nice fall foliage in the background.

I have been trying to do some new things with my snokeh photography. I will find a scene and they wait for interesting people to come through it. Here in the wet snow the umbrella gave me just what I was looking for.

Some photos just do something for me. I don’t know why I like this one outside of Pao Hall so much, but i just do. It is a simple photo, and maybe that is why.

I always make time to walk campus in the fall. I usually want a blue sky day so that the leaves look great up against it. Here are a couple of my favorites from this past fall.

The John Wooden state is fairly close to get to from my house. It also usually has pretty good access as far as parking goes as well. When we had a lunar halo I knew that I wanted something in the foreground so I went up to the athletics area hoping that something would line up. This worked pretty well. I gave some context to a cool event.

These last two photos are my favorites on the year. The first one is of the International Space Station flying over the campus of Purdue. A Boilermaker had just joined the crew up there so I thought that a photo with the Boilermaker state was appropriate. I am not the best at planning these things out, but here things worked out for a photo that I really liked.

This is a fun example of working a photo idea. Early in the year I made the top photo. I liked how it turned out, but the moon was a bit small for me. I then planned a photo down the road with the moon a little larger in the frame. I had to use a little more glass and be much further away to pull this off. I have one other option that can get me 1200mm of lens that I may try if I can get it to line up next year. It will be hard to top this photo though. If I can get far enough back to have the moon over the entire bell tower I will have done that. We will have to see what next year brings to see if I can pull that off.

So those are my favorite Purdue photos from the past year. My goal every year is to top the list from the year before. Last year another goal was to change things up a bit and try and photograph campus a little differently. I am really happy with how I was able to do that this year. This year I hope to do more of the same. I want to find more scenes around campus to fill this gallery. You can purchase any of these photos by clicking on it to go to my website.