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Alfred eisenstaedt biography1/16/2024 If the sailor had worn a white uniform, the same. If she had been dressed in a dark dress I would never have taken the picture. I turned around and clicked the moment the sailor kissed the nurse. ?Then suddenly, in a flash, I saw something white being grabbed. ?I was running ahead of him with my Leica, looking back over my shoulder, but none of the pictures that were possible pleased me,? he wrote. He recalled what happened next in his book Eisenstaedt on Eisenstaedt of 1985. ?Whether she was a grandmother, stout, thin, old, didn?t make a difference,? Eisenstaedt said. As he witnessed the day?s chaotic and euphoric scenes, he noticed one sailor running along the street kissing every woman he saw. His diminutive size (he was 5ft 4in/1.6m tall) helped him remain unobtrusive as he worked among the crowds. He was on assignment for Life as the events of V-J Day unfolded.Įisenstaedt specialised in capturing candid pictures of people and was among the first generation of professional photographers to use a Leica. After suffering the oppressions experienced by other Jewish citizens in Nazi Germany, he emigrated to the US in 1935 and, a year later, became one of the first four photographers hired to work for Life magazine. Photography became his full-time career in 1929 and he subsequently worked for several European magazines. However, in the mid-1920s he took up photography and soon began selling his pictures to the German newspaper Berliner Tageblatt. After the war he worked as a belt and button salesman in Berlin for ten years. After being born in Prussia and brought up in Berlin, he had fought for the German Army during the First World War and been wounded in battle in 1917. As the crowds began to assemble on the streets of New York to celebrate the end of years of war, Alfred Eisenstaedt was out in the city with his camera, aiming to capture images of ordinary people on this momentous day.Įisenstaedt was then in his mid-40s and had led a colourful life. On 14 August, President Harry Truman announced the Japanese surrender and the day became known as Victory in Japan Day (V-J Day). The war in the Pacific continued until August, when the US Military took the drastic step of dropping atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Concentration camp survivors were liberated, Germany was bombed into a final surrender and Hitler committed suicide. The Second World War was rapidly drawing to a close and the Allies were advancing through Europe, defeating what remained of the German Army. It is fair to say that 1945 was perhaps the most significant and momentous year in the history of the 20th century.
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