LOS ANGELES, INGLEWOOD — With nearly five decades of experience capturing iconic sports moments behind the camera, veteran Associated Press freelance photographer Jayne Kamin-Oncea has built a decades-long career documenting athletic competition, including 10 years covering major events in Southern California for the AP and 27 years with the *Los Angeles Times*. Her career traces back to 1978, when she got her start as an AP stringer in Miami while still earning her degree at the University of Miami. This tournament, she captured one of the most talked-about images from the opening match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup hosted on U.S. soil, the Friday matchup between the U.S. Men’s National Team and Paraguay. In a first-person breakdown, Kamin-Oncea walked through how the standout shot came together. From the opening kickoff, the energy inside SoFi Stadium was palpable, with U.S. forward Alex Freeman and his teammates locking in on their opponent from the first whistle. For Kamin-Oncea, the goal of any sideline coverage is to capture the raw intensity of players fighting to keep the ball in play, moments that often leave them teetering on the edge of the out-of-bounds line, walking a figurative tightrope between maintaining possession and turning the ball over. As the play unfolded, she immediately recognized she was framing a shot that would stand out for its raw tension. The final frame that made the cut shows Freeman airborne, elevated well above Paraguay’s Antonio Sanabria’s head and shoulders — a composition that many have interpreted as a visual metaphor for the U.S. team’s dominant performance over Paraguay in the matchup. To capture the shot, Kamin-Oncea relied on her trusted setup: a Nikon Z9 paired with a 400mm f/2.8 lens. With the action unfolding deep downfield, she activated the camera’s crop sensor button to get a tighter framing of the play, a choice that let her zoom in on the moment without sacrificing image quality. While many sports photographers critique the natural lighting conditions inside SoFi Stadium, Kamin-Oncea says the light works perfectly with her camera configuration, making it easy to get sharp, vivid shots. Her go-to settings for fast-paced soccer action include a 30 frames per second continuous shooting speed, with a one-third second pre-release buffer that lets her capture moments starting just before she fully presses the shutter. She always uses an extremely high shutter speed of 1/4000 of a second to eliminate any motion blur from fast-moving players, and adjusts the ISO on the fly to match shifting light conditions throughout the match. When evaluating what makes the shot work so well, Kamin-Oncea points to the striking composition: Freeman’s dramatic vertical jump above Sanabria, with his leg extended high, creates a dynamic visual that immediately draws the eye. She added that the sequence of shots from the play improved steadily through the final frames, with the last shot capturing the peak of the action perfectly. The image is just one of hundreds of shots from AP’s ongoing 2026 FIFA World Cup coverage, which can be accessed via the AP News hub.