As I scroll through my archive of football photographs, I always pause at that particular shot of Messi kissing the World Cup trophy. You can almost feel the weight of his entire career in that single frame—the decades of expectation, the near-misses, the relentless pressure finally dissolving into pure joy. That's what separates great sports photography from mere documentation; it freezes not just action, but the very essence of human experience. Having covered sports for fifteen years across three continents, I've come to recognize that the most powerful images often emerge from moments we didn't anticipate, moments where raw emotion overrides professional composure.

I remember specifically covering a volleyball match last season that perfectly illustrated this principle. The Philippine women's national team was facing Mongolia in a straight-sets victory that, on paper, might seem straightforward. But what the scoreline doesn't capture is the explosive performance of their two-time UAAP best opposite spiker in her international tournament debut. She finished with 17 points—10 attacks, 4 blocks, and 3 aces—statistics that only tell half the story. The moment that stuck with me was after her fourth block, when the ball slammed to the floor and she turned toward her teammates with this incredible mix of surprise and triumph. Her eyes were wide, mouth open in what could have been a scream or laughter, fists clenched so tight her knuckles were white. That photograph, which ran in several sports publications the next day, captured something statistics never could: the shock of someone realizing they're capable of more than they imagined.

What fascinates me about sports photography is how it bridges the gap between the player's internal experience and what the audience perceives. We watch matches from a distance, through screens or from stadium seats, but these images transport us directly into the emotional reality of competition. I've noticed that the most shared football photographs aren't necessarily the technically perfect shots of goals being scored, but rather the close-ups of faces in unguarded moments—the goalkeeper's despair after a missed save, the striker's momentary disbelief before celebration, the veteran player's quiet exhaustion during a stoppage in play. These images resonate because they reveal the vulnerability beneath the athletic prowess, reminding us that beneath the kits and contracts and transfer fees are people experiencing the highest highs and lowest lows of human emotion.

The technical aspect of capturing these moments requires both anticipation and surrender. You can position yourself based on patterns—knowing where a striker tends to shoot, understanding a goalkeeper's preferred diving direction—but the truly epic shots often come when you abandon pure calculation and become responsive to the game's emotional flow. I learned this early in my career when I missed what colleagues called "the shot of the season" because I was too focused on technical perfection. Now I keep one camera set for rapid action shots and another adjusted for spontaneous emotional moments, accepting that sometimes the slightly imperfect image with perfect emotion outweighs the technically flawless one that feels sterile.

Looking at football's most iconic images—Maradona's Hand of God, Zidane's headbutt, Brandi Chastain's World Cup celebration—what strikes me is how they've transcended sports to become cultural touchstones. They're referenced in political cartoons, appear in art exhibitions, and get memed across social media platforms. This cultural permeation happens precisely because these images capture universal human experiences: injustice, rage, redemption, joy. The context is football, but the emotions are human. In my own work, I've found that the images that continue to resonate years later are rarely the ones I expected to be significant at the time. They're the quiet moments between the action, the expressions that flash across faces too quickly for conscious processing, the physical manifestations of psychological turning points.

This brings me back to that volleyball match against Mongolia. While the statistics rightly highlight the debut performance of 17 points with 10 attacks, 4 blocks, and 3 aces, the image that stays with me is from after the match, when the same player was sitting alone on the bench, uniform still damp with sweat, staring at her hands with this look of profound discovery. It wasn't a dramatic celebration shot, but something more intimate—the private moment when an athlete comprehends the scale of what they've just accomplished. These are the images I treasure most in my collection, the ones that reveal the person behind the player.

In an era of instant replay and multiple camera angles, still photography maintains its power because it isolates a singular moment from the relentless flow of sport. It gives us permission to pause and absorb what would otherwise flash by in real-time. The best sports photographers understand that we're not just documenting games; we're collecting fragments of human drama. As both a photographer and lifelong sports fan, I believe these images do more than preserve history—they connect us to the emotional truth of competition in ways that statistics and highlights cannot. They remind us why we care about these games in the first place, and why certain moments, frozen in time, continue to resonate long after the final whistle has blown.

LIGHTING, LIGHTING, AND MORE LIGHTING
People are typically drawn to bars solely based on their atmosphere. The best way to knock your next commercial bar design out of the park is using the perfect amount and type of lighting. Use standout light fixtures as their very own statement piece, track lighting for adjustable ambiance, hanging pendant lights over tables, and ambient backlighting to display the alcohol. Bartenders need to serve and customers need to order, so make sure it’s just functional as it is attractive. 

CHOOSING YOUR BARTOP
What may seem so obvious, is often so overlooked in commercial bar design- the material of your actual bartop itself. While we realize stone and marble are as classy and elegant-looking as can be, the reality is that they just aren’t your best option for a durable and long lasting bartop. They crack, have no grip, and break way too many glasses. Opt for a high-quality wood bar instead. Oaks, maples, mahoganies, and ashes are sturdy and provide your customers with a firm grip for their glasses. 

THEME 
In a sea of millions upon millions of bars, how can you make your commercial bar design stand apart from the rest? The answer is to pick a unique, centralized theme and run with it. Whether it’s your next sit-down restaurant bar design, or remodeling the small, locally-favorite gem, you have to find out what your clientele wants. Survey the neighborhood of your establishment and find out what the demographics are there. Maybe a gritty, western bar would be a hit. Or maybe a more modern, sleek design is what’s missing in the area. Whatever theme you decide upon, hit it out of the park with the perfect lighting, wall art, music, and furniture. It’s all in the details. 

THE GUIDE TO YOUR NEXT RESTOBAR 
You’ve got the food, you’ve got the restaurant, you’ve got the customers, now all you need is a beautifully designed bar to top it all off.  Small bar designs for restaurants have a tendency to be a little thrown together and incohesive with the rest of the establishment. Stay on brand- create consistency with tying in the same color scheme, furniture, art, and overall ambiance of the pre-existing restaurant. Make sure the placement of your bar makes sense as well, have it in a place where it’s visible and easy to navigate but not in the way of servers and other guests. If the bar is going to serve food, be sure to consider the location of the kitchen to not obstruct traffic flow. Consider all of these small tips as you work through your next restaurant bar design. 

SPACE CONSTRAINT 
It’s no secret that bars have the reputation of being a little cramped, and in some cases- way too cramped. Consider all of the space constraints while designing your next commercial bar design and we can change that bad rap that bars have been holding for far too long. First and foremost, be sure to measure your bar, barstool, cabinet, and equipment height. Generally, a bar is 42” in height while a stool is 30” in height. Also be sure to allow at least 3’ of space between the bar and the alcohol for the bartender’s functionality and efficiency. Consider multiple register and drink-making stations for bartenders as well. Allowing 2’ between patrons is going to give them enough space to eat and drink, and most importantly, simply be comfortable. All of these considerations are especially helpful if it is a restaurant bar design, where the space is even more valuable.