Photographers don't watch the Super Bowl for the punchlines. They watch how the images are made.

Looking through the archives, the early years feel purely functional. Wide shots. Flat lighting. Cameras positioned to explain rather than interpret. Everything is built for clarity on a living room TV. The camera's job is to show, not to feel.

As the years move on, photographers evolved with the industry. Framing becomes deliberate as depth starts to matter. Ads stop documenting moments and begin constructing them.

Super Bowl ads stopped feeling like broadcasts and started feeling like cinema. Cameras move closer. Shots hold longer. Faces fill the frame. True creative decisions start to be celebrated rather than questioned. 

Over the decades stillness has become just as important as movement. A pause. A glance. The winners and th losers. Every image has it’s own unique narrative. Photographers know how hard it is to leave those moments in, especially on the biggest stage in advertising. Looking back now, photographers rarely shot with nostalgia.

These Super Bowl archives remind photographers of a truth. The images that last aren't always the ones of the highs. They're the ones that give you a reason to stop a feel.

Over the last decade, that mindset has been chipped away. Platforms changed. Outputs multiplied. Design became more adaptive, more flexible, and in many ways more impressive. 

The great ones never lose, they just run out of time. 

Shot of the good stuff.