My Favorite Purdue Campus Photos Of 2024

This was a fun year making photos on campus. I tried to branch out a bit and try some new things. A couple of projects that I started in 2024 involving film are still going.

The infrared camera helps make some very nice looking photos in the worst light. Here in the middle of the day it allowed me to make a striking photo in a familiar spot.

This year the Purdue Union turned 100. I had some fun making photos of it from different angles showing what a cool landmark it is. I don’t know if this is what they had in mind for it over 100 years ago, but it has become a great place for students and people from town to hang out. I like this photo of it best with a little movement in it.

We will end this post with a fun photo after Purdue clinched a Final Four berth. There was a huge crowd at the airport, and the players really enjoyed celebrating with the fans. This was a party that was a long time coming. It was awesome to be a part of it, and I hope that I can do it again sometime.

This is one of my favorite doors on campus. The Wesley Foundation was just such a cool building. Of course this year it came down to make way for a larger business school. Hopefully the new building on this site will have a quarter of the character of the building that it is replacing.

I made this one foggy morning on campus. I found a spot that I liked, and I hoped for something interesting to come into the frame. I didn’t have much time so whatever was going to come had to come quick. I was losing my blue hour light quickly. I was extremely lucky that a bike with a headlight on it came into the frame adding a lot to this photo.

Speaking of buildings that are no longer around here are a couple of photos of Heavily Hall before it was taken down this year. The area around the clapping circle has really changed over the last few years. It really looks nothing like it used to.

For every building to come down you have a building that goes up on campus. Here is a photo of a newer building on campus. Dudley Hall is one that has many possibilities. I really liked this idea though with the suns reflection adding a little bit to the photo.

It is hard to believe with all of the titles that Purdue has won, but this was my first up close photo of the trophy. It was a long time coming, but worth it. Hopefully it is the first of many. In the past I was part of a team so I was always somewhere else making photos when it was raised. Now I am a one man band so I can go where I want. I look forward to coming up with new ways to make these photos over the years. In fact I hope that I get bored of making them because I have made so many.

Last winter we spent some time at the Purdue Animal Hospital with our dog Max. When he was back being tested or looked at I would go on little walks with my camera instead of sitting in the waiting room. I really like this photo at blue hour of a kid crossing the street with the greenhouse as the background.

This photo is heavily inspired by Saul Leiter. He liked to use elements of the foreground as ways to frame things out of his photos. The deep snow help me just focus on this talking head at Pao Hall.

Ross Ade Stadium under the lights is tough to beat. For the Oregon game I went up top to get a runout photo with the pyro going off. One of these days we will get another runout during a sunset where we can really have some fun. This worked out pretty well though.

As Purdue was on their way to their first Final Four since 1980 I was outside of Harry’s waiting for some reactions. I really didn’t get anyone running out of the bar or the streets filling up like I thought that I might. I did like this simple photo of some students who couldn’t get in watching the end of the game.

This is the Jesse Andrew house. It is the oldest house in West Lafayette. I walked by it for years on my way to campus without really paying any attention to it. Here I had some fun with the infrared camera to make a fun photo of it.

I don’t work for the food delivery company on campus, but sometimes I like to make photos like I do. I saw this vehicle coming, and I got down low to capture it as it went by the Loeb Fountain.

This blog has a little history with Tyler Trent. He was an amazing person to be around. I always try and keep him in mind when I am on campus. He was a light that shined brightly for a short period of time. Here I found a way to show off his new gate placement during sunset one night. I was up there on another assignment, but I paused here for a while to get this light around the stadium. I like how this turned out.

Something happened to this roll of film either on my end or at the lab. It really ruined a lot of the photos that I had made with it. Here though I think that the fog around the outside actually added to this photo of the Purdue Memorial Union in the snow.

I like a good black and white reflection photo. Here you don’t get a lot of the reflection, but it is enough. Sometimes the worst weather nights are the best nights for photography on campus.

I don’t know what the official name for this area on campus is, but I have always called it the corridor. You have Mackey at the end, Holloway on the right, and the practice court and offices on the left. It is one of my favorite places on campus to make photos. Here are a couple of my favorites from this past year.

I made it this far without a bell tower photo. I tried to stay away from the obvious photos this year of the bell tower, but here it looked pretty cool.

For the last home football game of the year I went wide a couple of times. For the runout I wanted the starburst in my photo. The timing of it was a little off, but I think that the team running out late actually made the photo. Just after the half the sun was setting and the sky was lighting up. I ran up into the stands after a score to make this photo of the kickoff with the sunset. I like both of them, and they are both reasons why this countdown is fun for me.

Those are my favorite photos from this year on campus.