Stadium — World Cup, 1998 6

Two friends — a young person with short dark hair and warm brown skin, and a slim North African man with a short dark fade, thin gold chain, wearing a crisp white national team jersey tucked into navy tracksuit bottoms — walking through a fan zone outside the World Cup stadium after the match, night now fully fallen. Both still in their national team jerseys, face paint smudged and half-gone from hours of sweating and celebrating, looking at the camera with tired happy grins. The North African man drapes his arm around the young person's shoulder, the plastic horn dangling from his other hand. The stadium rises behind them, fully lit, floodlights blazing against the black sky, its massive structure glowing like a spaceship. Fans in every nation's colors mill around, celebrating, singing, vendors selling souvenirs. Flash catches the two friends, the crowd falling dark behind. Heavy warm grain, slight magenta cast. This photo was in a Kodak envelope in a kitchen drawer for twenty years. Natural skin texture with subtle pores and micro-imperfections, organic asymmetry in features.