A kid playing with a ball next to a tank trap: Paul Lowe’s best photograph

‘It’s such an ordinary thing for a kid to do, but that carefree moment is happening against a hint of ever-present danger’ … Lowe’s shot of a Sarajevo street. Photograph: Paul Lowe

By the time I arrived in Sarajevo in June 1992, I had already spent some time documenting the end of the cold war, shooting the Romanian revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall. When rumours began to circulate that something was going to happen in Bosnia, no one could believe it. The country seemed integrated: a war would mean people literally fighting their neighbours.

Many of us covering the siege of Sarajevo initially believed, perhaps naively, that telling the story loud enough, well enough and honestly enough would lead to condemnation and intervention from the international community. There was a sense of incredulity that this could be happening in a European capital city. I don’t think any of us would have thought the blockade would still be in place three years later.