Was The Vancouver Riot Photo Staged?

In a matter of 24 hours, the photo of a Vancouver couple making out during Wednesday night’s riots went global. The photo launched a meme, prompted skepticism of its authenticity, and launched a furious search for the couple’s identity that ultimately led to two names: Austrailian comedian Scott Jones, and his Canadian girlfriend Alex Thomas. Look for them to appear on every talk show ever in the coming days, because that’s how this stuff works, isn’t it?

But was the photo staged? The Atlantic tracked down the photographer to find out.

From the Atlantic Wire, photographer Rich Lam sets the scene.

How did you manage to catch this moment? “It was real brief. What happened was, just before I turned back and looked [toward the couple], I was running down with the mob as the riot police were rushing us down the street. I looked back and saw them on the ground. My initial thought was that she got caught up by the moving police line... I thought she was hurt and someone was helping her out… Right after that there was some guy charging the police line like he was a running back. There was a lot going on, and next thing that happened a mannequin’s arm went flying over my head and it was just chaos.”

And then address the skepticism.

Some are saying the alternate photo proves a set-up. Do you buy that? “What you don’t see in the frame is that 20 feet beyond is the mounted [police] squad, on horseback. I don’t think they were in any mood for people to be playing around setting something up like this. There were dogs too. I wasn’t hanging around at all, it was chaos. Maybe someone had a really brilliant idea to do it, I don’t know. I don’t want to speculate... The police line had just moved, there was tear gas, people were getting pepper sprayed, there was a lot going on.”

But most importantly: If it was staged, does that make it any less awesome?