Kissing riot couple surprised by attention

Vancouver couple apparently kissing during riot.

The Australian man photographed kissing his girlfriend on a Vancouver street amid the post-Cup violence is surprised the photo has stirred so much interest, says his father.

Brett Jones, from Perth, Australia, told CTV News Channel on Friday that his son, Scott, was simply trying to comfort his girlfriend after she was knocked down by police. Jones said it was a private moment between his son and his girlfriend, Alexander Thomas, who suffered a few bruises from the incident.

"To them, until they saw the shots up on the Internet, it was just something that happened and they've sort of just forgotten about it and moved on," Jones said.

The photo of the kissing couple went viral on Thursday, a day after the Canucks lost the deciding Stanley Cup game, with many people curious to learn the identity of the couple.

The question was answered Friday after Hannah Jones, Scott's sister told 9News that the man in the photo is her 29-year-old brother.

Hannah told the Australian news outlet that Jones, who is visiting from Australia, has been living in Vancouver for six months and had recently started dating Thomas.

Jones's father said the couple have plans to travel together and will be leaving for California in four days.

Taken by freelance photojournalist Richard Lam, the image of the kissing couple went viral after the Canucks lost Game 7 to the Boston Bruins on Wednesday night.

Lam, who was assigned to cover the game for Getty Images, told CTV.ca on Friday that when he took the photo, he wasn't even aware of what he had captured until after he had given his camera's memory cards to his editors.

"I was blown away," said Lam when he saw the photo. "My initial reaction was that someone was hurt."

Lam said he is not the photographer in the second kissing photo that surfaced on the Internet hours later.

In that photo, the couple is surrounded by a small group of people, including a photographer hovering over them. Lam said it's likely that second photo was taken from the upper floors of a parkade that overlooks the street where the couple was kissing.