Looking Beyond the Aesthetics of Nostalgia: TV Photography at the World Cup
The FIFA World Cup is a global celebration of the most popular sport in the world - football. Aside from the sporting aspect of these massive tournaments, however, each one of them seems to have a certain aesthetic which guides how they will be collectively remembered. Surprisingly, this year’s World Cup in the US seems set to be remembered in instantly nostalgic, distorted photographs of the tournament’s TV broadcast. In this article, we look at how and why this unlikely aesthetic charmed the world of football, and why we should look beyond viewing it as a hollowed-out aesthetic style.
by Emil Voss · 2 min read
With the 2026 FIFA World Cup freshly behind us, it is fair to assume the image above will long remain as a visual representation of the tournament in the collective memory of football fans around the world. What many people do not know, however, is that the photograph portraying the French national team superstar Kylian Mbappe was captured by Florence Pernet - an extremely accomplished photographer who rose to prominence by notoriously and gloriously capturing major sports events, including this year's Winter Olympics.
This time around, however, Pernet decided not to apply for the tournament's press accreditation and instead opted to enjoy it the same way most fans do - through a TV in her Parisian apartment. It was there that Pernet started applying her lens to the TV screen. After sharing the first series of images on her Instagram account, it quickly became obvious that the grainy, dreamy and weirdly nostalgic aesthetic resonated with audiences extremely well. The success of her photographs was such that Pernet immediately followed them up by collaborating with the Portugal national team.
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