Nearly 20 years ago one of, if not the worst disasters occurred at Hillsborough Football club. The Hillsborough disaster claimed 96 lives and to this day is still remembered by loving fans and family. I went to the Liverpool grounds a few weeks back and while I’ve seen the tribute to Hillsborough there I was taken back by the fans. Nearly everyone who passed touched the monument, the eternal flame. Whether for it was for good luck or to remember people they knew, I wasn’t sure. I stood just beside the gate and used my 10mm to get these shots. I was very very close, closer than I’ve been to anything like this. I was quite nervous. Should I have been documenting it? Was I invading their privacy? No-one seemed to mind. No-one told me to get lost. I was watching a documentary about a war photographer, James Nachtwey, and something he said stuck in my mind. He said that if he wasn’t accepted by the people he was documenting then he wouldn’t get the photos. By them accepting his presence as a photographer documenting their lives he can accept himself as a photographer. That will stick with me and give me confidence in the future.

I did HDR this image. Why not use the flash correctly you may say. Well I didn’t want to make them that aware of me. I didn’t want the flash to be going off like I was some Paparazzi photographer. I can see the value in a Leica for times like these. Its small, its quiet. You could argue that it lets you get away with more, but for me I would say that it lets you go un-noticed. It lets you get the shot without distracting people. So for this I used HDR to bring back some of the details I had blown out.

Camera: Canon 30D // Exposure: 1/400s at f/4 // Exposure Bias: -1 // ISO: 640 // Focal Length: 10mm (Cropped by 8×10 in Photoshop) // Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 // HDR from 1 RAW using Photomatix