(From Daily Mail) A Brooklyn photographer who happened upon an amorous couple getting arrested launched a full out search for the identity of the lovebirds.
Mo Gelber, who specializes in street photography, captured the well-timed smooch as the pair was being carted off by New York City’s finest in August.
He entered the photograph, ‘Last Kiss,’ in a picture contest sponsored by director Ron Howard and was chosen as a finalist … but the competition wouldn’t consider the snapshot without permission from the romantic renegades.
The shutterbug took to social media to search for the identities of the young New Yorkers in the picture, that was reminiscent of the infamous kissing couple from the Vancouver riot last summer.
‘Help !!!’ he wrote on his Facebook page on August 17.
‘Does anyone know who this couple is? I have approximately 24 hours to find them. It is very important. I took this photo outside Manhattan criminal court on Thursday August 16th.’
‘I entered this photo in a major contest which I am about to win and need them to sign a release form. When this photo wins the contest, they will be in a very big movie with famous actors and directors.’
Gelber, 42, told the New York Daily News that the attractive blonde in the picture came forward and identified herself as Alexis Creque, 28.
She said she was keeping watch when her boyfriend was tagging graffiti outside the Milk & Honey lounge on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and said the pair were arrested on August 15.
‘I was just the look-out,’ she said. ‘We had a crazy romance all summer. It is like a movie,’ she told the News.
Her boyfriend is a well known tag artist but the loyal lover won’t identify her beau, who is 26, as he is still in jail.
Creque has been released but said she won’t sign a release for the picture until her sweetheart is also free.
But Gelber is determined to get a John Hancock from the jailed street artist.
‘I will bring the release form to Rikers if I have to,’ Gelber said. ‘I just really want to win this contest.’
Gelber’s pic is under consideration for the top prize in Project Imaginat10n, where photographers were asked to submit their work.
