HE MAY have just won a prestigious national photography award with an incredible image from London 2012, but modest Hutton GP Dr Kannan Athreya insists it was just a fluke.
Dr Athreya, who works at The Surgery in Mount Avenue, scooped the UK Picture Editors' Guild's Spirit of the Olympics gong for this photograph, which he took during the opening ceremony of the Games on July 27.
Yet the father of one considers himself rather fortunate to have won, as he explained this week.
The 45-year-old, whose seven-year-old daughter Lena is pictured in the foreground of his photo, said: "I was ready to take a photo with my SLR camera when I found out the battery had died so I took the shot with a point-and-click Canon S95 instead.
"I think the fact that it exposed so well is down to luck – that is the honest truth."
He added: "I could see on the camera that it was a good one but you don't quite know how good it is until you get it on to the computer.
"I kept saying to my daughter to turn around' but she wouldn't – although I guess if she had listened to her father then I wouldn't have got this photograph."
Dr Athreya, who has worked at The Surgery for the past 17 years, was persuaded to enter the competition when several of his patients remarked how good the photograph was after he mounted it on the wall of his consulting room.
He sent the photo off to the organisers in September and was informed at the end of last month that he had been shortlisted for the Guild's Spirit of the Olympics award.
Then on November 8, he received the gong from the Mayor of London Boris Johnson at a ceremony at the London headquarters of the Honourable Artillery Company, the oldest regiment in the British Army.
Alan Sparrow, Chairman of The UK Picture Editors' Guild, said: "Dr Athreya's picture left the five judges with little doubt who the winner would be. His image summed up the nation's joy and exuberance of the Olympics in one brilliant image."
Reflecting on the evening, Dr Athreya, who lives in Wanstead, north-east London, said: "It was proper Oscars stuff.
"Boris Johnson announced the winners and I didn't expect him to be there. I tried to get my daughter to come up with me to collect the award but she point blank refused and then I threatened to get Boris to come and meet her, but she started crying so we left it."
He added: "It was a wonderful experience.
" I guess it was my 15 minutes of fame."
