Kansas City photographer Roy Inman said taking the picture of the Royals celebration in front of Union Station happened so quickly it was like a dream.
“I’ve never seen that many Royals fans in one place in the first place. I’d never seen that much blue.”
By all estimates, up to 800,000 fans gathered in front of Liberty Memorial for the event.
Inman recognized the historic moment.
“I went up to the third floor where the big arch windows are, looked out and said, ‘Could we go to the roof?’"
Once on the roof, he ran into a little resistance from the fire marshal.
"The fire marshal was there because there were pyrotechnics already set up to shoot fireworks before, during and after the program, and so of course they couldn't have anyone else on the roof,” Inman said. “So the fire marshal held up his hand - five minutes."
After propping a ladder against the wall, he climbed up and was immediately in awe.
"Wow, wow, wow, holy cow."
Without the right lens on his camera, he said he had about 10 seconds to decide on a panoramic photo.
“So I shot four individual photos, shot four more individual photos, and then stitched them together in Photoshop,” Inman said. “It did not alter the view. What it did was show the viewer what I saw when I looked over the edge."
Although he's photographed Kansas City's landmarks for years, fans said this shot is Inman's best.
“The spontaneous photo is almost always the strongest. It just is. And this, of course, was spontaneous and unexpected."
The poster is only sold at Union Station for $22. For information on how you can get four of them for free, visit http://www.unionstation.org/.
The "membership/4 free" is an extended holiday promo. Although details are no longer online, anyone interested can inquiry & purchase from ticketing office. Shipping posters was a holiday special. Orders placed online now require pick up at our ticketing office. See links below for general poster info & the breakdown of membership prices.
CLICK HERE for Royals Rally Poster
CLICK HERE for membership options
------
Jane Monreal can be reached at jane.monreal@kshb.com.
