Mike Karas (@mike.karas)(NEW YORK) — The mystery couple captured in a stunning photograph during sunset at Yosemite National Park in California has been identified.
Michael Karas, a 31-year-old amateur photographer from Honolulu, Hawaii, snapped the gorgeous shot of the two people in a tuxedo and a wedding dress last Thursday while touring the park on vacation.
At the time, he had no idea who they were.
“I was shooting that area for sunset already when they walked out on the ledge,” Karas explained on Instagram. “As someone who enjoys tying to capture life’s amazing moments and landscapes I didn’t hesitate to snap away. It was a surreal moment.”
After taking the photos of the couple, Karas told ABC News he tried to “make it over to where they were” to share his photos, but by the time he got there, “they were already gone.”
So he posted one of photos he took to his Instagram account the following day, in the hopes that social media users could connect him with the couple.
The photo quickly went viral, garnering thousands of likes. On Wednesday evening, the romantic mystery was finally solved.
“I had been back in Honolulu at my regular day job as an Allstate adjuster, and I was going about my day,” Karas told ABC News today. “At the same time, I was trying to sift through all the comments I was getting on the photo to see if there was any word on the couple.”
Later in the day, he said he confirmed that the couple in his photograph were Catherine Mack and Rick Donald, both actors who were once series regulars on the Australian TV series “Home and Away.”
Karas was tagged by someone in the comments section of his photo that Mack re-posted to her Instagram account.
“This special moment was caught by Mike Karas who we don’t know (at all),” Mack wrote in the caption. “[H]e was just taking a sunset shot and we happened to wander into it. Thanks for looking for us far and wide, you certainly caught our attention.”
Karas said he was “so relieved and stoked” that Mack and her husband were “happy and excited about the photo.” He added that he got in touch with Mack over the phone shortly after seeing her post.
Mack told ABC News today she “thought the whole situation was quite hilarious” and that she and Donald were “so happy to get his amazing photo.”
“It was a really special day and special time in our lives,” she said, adding that the photo captured a moment after their wedding, which was that day.
Both the couple and photographer are now gearing up for new adventures.
Mack said she and her husband were flying to Paris today and Karas said he had a trip scheduled to Moraine Lake in Canada in two weeks.
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