At first, everything was going according to plan for photographer Raheel Gauba’s latest engagement shoot in Charleston, SC. He brought a local couple into the city streets as he usually does, walked around and asked them to pose among the beautiful scenery.
Then, Bill Murray showed up, and in typical Bill Murray fashion, he made a scene.
“There was a staircase, and I asked the couple to stand there, get comfortable, and look into the camera, but instead of looking at the camera, I saw this look of astonishment," Gauba, 35, tells Ellen’s Good News. “I thought it was tourist or somebody bothering them and I said to ignore whatever was going on. I didn’t look.”
Moments later, his subjects were still distracted, and Gauba finally turned around.
“I wanted to stop whoever was bothering them, and I see Bill Murray standing there with his belly exposed, patting it and making weird sounds to try and make them laugh,” Gauba recalls.
Gauba asked the actor to join the couple for a shot, and Murray obliged. Afterward, Murray congratulated them on their engagement, and went on his merry way with the two people who were with him.
The shoot happened in mid-April, but Gauba only posted the photo yesterday.
“I’m a perfectionist and I want to make sure I have only the best, the perfect, most creative pictures,” he explains. “I was being lazy about this photo because it’s just a basic picture, but the couple kept asking to see it.”
After posting on Facebook and Twitter, not only did the couple get to see it, so did the rest of the world. The image of Murray posing in an old corridor with the twosome went viral overnight, and Gauba says his phone has been ringing nonstop.
“It is unbelievable, I need like five extra batteries,” he jokes. “The funny thing is that the couple says this picture has received more attention from their friends and family than the original engagement photos.”
Well, after all, it is Bill Murray. He’s a ghostbuster!