The Week That Was In Sports

This was a crazy week of sports photography for me. Since the last sports post a week ago I have photographed nine games in those seven days. It started with two soccer matches a day Saturday and Sunday. The Big Ten tournament was here for the opening rounds, and it was really cool to get to photograph it. During the week I had four basketball games in five days with a volleyball match thrown in for fun. Here is a look at some of the stories that I liked from this past week.

A Great Celebration

Saturdays slate of soccer matches started off with a good one. Wisconsin took on Iowa with a little revenge on their mind. I loved this celebration after the first goal. She showed some hops before meeting her teammates for a more traditional celebration. This was a great way to start off the day.

To The Lou

After winning the match Wisconsin made a sign to show that they are moving on in the tournament. The next round was held in St. Louis so I kept hearing about ‘the Lou’. I liked this photo of the sign being made.

A Little Detail

This year I have been trying to get better at finding details. Here I saw some great tattoos while the player was getting ready to throw the ball in. It was only after the fact when I got home that I saw that one of the tattoos was a Steamboat Colorado license plate. I have been out there many times including my brothers wedding. It is a special place, and I am glad that I made this frame.

A Lot Of Jube

Penn State was probably the biggest underdog of the tournament at the point that I made this photo. They were very excited when they scored the first goal of the game. For a while it looked like it could hold up, but it was not meant to be. I still love this frame though.

The Header Game

The first game of the final day of the tournament will probably be forever known to me as the header game. I made so many header photos during the game. Some of it might be that it was day three and I was getting much better at photographing soccer. It might also be that all of the headers seemed to be right in front of me. Whatever it was I will take it. I had a really fun game, and I made some images that I really liked.

Capturing The Fall Colors

When the light would allow during this tournament I tried to find backgrounds that were full of fall colors. Folk Field is a beautiful place, and even more so in the fall. In 2015 when I covered the Big Ten tournament I loved the fall light on the players and the colors. This time around a lot of the games were played after sunset. When I could though I tried to show off the beautiful area around the stadium.

My Last Soccer Of The Year

More than likely these last photos from the tournament will be my last soccer photos until next fall. I really had fun this year in limited games making soccer photos. Fall ball really cut into how many high school games that I could cover. I thought that this sunset photo was a great photo for my last on the blog for 2025. Unless of course you count the hundred or so in the final portion of this post.

The First Real Game Of The Season In Mackey

On Monday night the Purdue women’s team opened their season with a win over FDU. It was great to be back in Mackey again. Early in the season my goal is to play around with some of the new gear to see what works best. I think that it became pretty evident after the first game what lens would be carrying the weight for me this year. The Sony 50-150 is pretty amazing, and will do the bulk of the work for me this season. It works from a spot under the hoop, and also from out wide on the baseline. One thing that I have learned during this busy week is that I have a core kit that really works for me. This is the first time since the pandemic that I can say that. Now that I have my kit back I feel like it is game on. I can finally do some of the things that I have felt like I couldn’t in the past.

The Eyes Have It

Earlier in this game I saw these lashes and knew that I had to find a way to get them into a photo. When the player went to guard the player bringing the ball up the court I knew that I had my chance. I never dreamt that this would work out so well. This is one of my favorite sports photos that I made this year.

Breaking Out The Star Filter

I have had a few star filters over the years. I have always had them for my slower lenses though. I used them more for landscapes than anything else. I had this idea Monday at the women’s game, but nobody came into the far corner for a shot. On Tuesday Fletcher Loyer came to the corner and gave me this great shot. He also scored 30 on the night.

Getting The Dunk

There are not many players on this team that will dunk the ball. For me and what I do I would like players like this to get the ball on the other side of the hoop and dunk right at me. Here I am off to the side a little making the photo not as good. I still will take it though. A dunk photo is a dunk photo.

A Familiar Face

For a while during the game I thought that the Evansville coach looked very familiar. My family is used to me saying that I have photographed someone. I knew that I had photographed David Ragland before. He has coached at Indiana State, Valpo, and Butler so the odds are pretty good. It is always cool to see familiar faces moving up into head coaching spots.

He’s Heating Up!

Fletcher Loyer had a career game Tuesday night. He made the most of every time that he had an open look at the basket. Here I got a clean look at him nailing a three. You don’t always get these clean looks from my position. You are shooting across a very busy area of the floor. I am glad that this one worked out.

Trying Out The Kalaidescope Filter

Before the women’s game on Thursday I broke out the kaleidoscope filter to have some fun. Early on I was not getting what I wanted. Then something clicked, and I started to make some interesting photos. This is a bigger filter that is not protected on my camera so I don’t know how much I will use it. It is a cool thing to break out every now and then though. I will have to come up with a couple more ways to use it.

Breaking Out The Remote

I haven’t used a remote in a while so I wanted to get everything back out to try it. The real goal was to use it for the men’s game on Friday, but the women’s game was a good chance to make sure that everything was working properly. It was, and it gave me a couple of images to break up my gallery.

Finally Making The Bench Photo

I tried to keep panning to the bench after a made shot during the second half to make a photo like the one above. I would end up with a ref or a stray player in between me and the bench. Very late in the game everything worked out to make this photo. Thank goodness because it was one of the better reactions of the night.

A Big Battle

One of the things that I wanted to see at this game was a battle of the young bigs for each team. Purdue has Avery Gordon who is 6’7″ (yeah I know). Eastern Illinois has a 6’10” center named Abbie Boutilier. I wanted a photo showing both of them going at it. You don’t usually see this kind of height going toe to toe in a women’s game at Mackey. I lucked out late to get this interaction between them.

Make A Different Sport Photo

I always like when a photo from one sport looks like it came from a different sport. Here is looks like a Purdue running back covering up the ball going through the hole in the line. Or it could just be a basketball player driving to the hoop. It was something different early in the game so I will take it.

Going Streaking

Before the Purdue volleyball match on Friday night I was having some fun playing around with my gold streak filter. I kept trying to get things to line up for a photo. Here they kind of all worked out for a frame that I liked. I don’t think that this thing has a spot every week in my bag. From time to time though it can help make pregame a little more fun.

Volleyball Emotion

Volleyball is a fun sport to cover to get all of the emotion. If a team wins the set then they have celebrated at least 25 times during that set. You have plenty of chances to get something good. For some reason during the two sets that I saw Friday night neither team really had a big celebration. This was probably my biggest celebration of the night.

A Weird Game

Maybe it is because I am at the end of a streak of games in a row, but the Purdue basketball game Friday night just seemed kind of flat. I got things that I always want during a game, but it just didn’t seem like enough. I had good emotion facing me. I had three dunks at my end of the court all facing me. Something just seemed off. The moments in between those were not as good for some reason.

Of Course

With about a minute to go with the play stopped I broke down my floor remote so that I could get off the court quicker. In my head I thought that the other team could get a meaningless breakaway dunk, but what were the odds of that? Well of course it happened and luckily for me it looked good from my handheld camera. Having two views of this dunk would have been cool though.

Blocked

This game I made a couple of photos of Oscar Cluff getting a block. He has more of a reach style of blocking that works really well for the camera. With TKR out his minutes are up, and it helps me make more of these types of photos.

More Photos From The Week

This was a long, but very fun week. I always think that I get better the more that I make photos. When I used to play sports I had to get going a bit before I started to play well. I always feel like that is the same for photography. There was a lot going on this week, and this section will show it. I should give away a prize for getting through this entire post.