Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Times Square Victoria 1945







Fotografía de archivo tomada el 11 de agosto de 2005 que muestra a la ex enfermera estadoundiense Edith Shain (i), protagonista de la fotografía titulada ‘El Beso’, de Alfred Eisenstadt, durante la presentación de la estatua que captura ese instante del día de la Victoria de 1945, en Times Square, Nueva York. Shain murió ayer, 22 de junio de 2010, a los 91 años en su casa de Los Ángeles. La imagen, en su día portada de la revista ‘Life’, se ha convertido en un símbolo de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. EFE/Peter Foley

Alfred Eisenstaedt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Eisenstaedt" redirects here. For other uses, see Eisenstadt (disambiguation).
Alfred Eisenstaedt

Eisenstaedt's V–J day in Times Square.
Born December 6, 1898
Dirschhau (Tczew), West Prussia, Imperial Germany
Died August 24, 1995 (aged 96)
Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, United States
Occupation Photojournalism
Alfred Eisenstaedt (December 6, 1898[1] – August 24, 1995) was a German-American photographer and photojournalist. He is renowned for his candid photographs, frequently made using various models of a 35mm Leica rangefinder camera. He is best known for his photograph capturing the celebration of V-J Day.[2]

Early life
Eisenstaedt was born in Dirschau (Tczew) in West Prussia, Imperial Germany. His family moved to Berlin in 1906. Eisenstaedt served in the German Army's artillery during World War I, being wounded in 1918. While working as a belt and button salesman in the 1920s Weimar Germany, Eisenstaedt began taking photographs as a freelancer for the Berliner Tageblatt.
[edit]Professional photographer
Eisenstaedt was successful enough to become a full-time photographer in 1929. Four years later he photographed a meeting between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Italy. Other notable pictures taken by Eisenstaedt in his early career include a waiter ice skating in St. Moritz in 1932 and Joseph Goebbels at the League of Nations in Geneva in 1933. Although initially friendly, Goebbels scowled for the photograph when he learned that Eisenstaedt was Jewish.[3]
Because of oppression in Hitler's Nazi Germany, Eisenstaedt emigrated to the United States in 1935, where he lived in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York, for the rest of his life.[4] He worked as a photographer for Life magazine from 1936 to 1972. His photos of news events and celebrities, such as Dagmar, Sophia Loren and Ernest Hemingway, appeared on 90 Life covers.[2]
[edit]Martha's Vineyard


As Dagmar rose to fame on Broadway Open House, Alfred Eisenstaedt photographed her for the July 16, 1951 issue of Life.
Eisenstaedt, known as "Eisie" to his close friends, enjoyed his annual August vacations on the island of Martha's Vineyard for 50 years. When on assignment in the Galapagos Islands,[vague] Eisenstaedt left the Galapagos prior to the assignment's completion so he could arrive on time for his Vineyard vacation in the Menemsha area of the town of Chilmark.[citation needed] During his Vineyard summers, he would conduct photographic "experiments," by working with various lenses, filters, and prisms, but always working with natural light. Eisenstaedt was fond of Martha's Vineyard's photogenic lighthouses, and was the focus of lighthouse fund raisers for the Vineyard Environmental Research Institute (VERI), the lease-holder of the lighthouses. One fund raiser was titled "Eisenstaedt Day" and was an international event. The last Eisenstaedt lighthouse fundraiser was held in August 1995, the month of his death on Martha's Vineyard.
He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1989.[5]
Eisenstaedt's last photographs were of President Bill Clinton with wife, Hillary, and daughter, Chelsea, on August 1993, at the Granary Gallery in West Tisbury on Martha's Vineyard. This historic "private" photo-session took place in a fenced-in courtyard protected by the Secret Service for over one hour, and was fully documented by William E. Marks.[6] Marks, who took hundreds of photographs of Eisenstaedt in every situation imaginable for over ten years,[citation needed] also photographed Eisenstaedt signing his famous V-J Day photograph on the morning of his passing.
Eisenstaedt died in his bed at midnight in his beloved Menemsha Inn cottage known as the "Pilot House".[2]
His death was attended by his sister-in-law, Lucille (Lulu) Kaye, and his close friend, publisher/author William E. Marks.


[edit]V–J day in Times Square
Main article: V–J day in Times Square
Eisenstaedt's most famous photograph is of an American sailor kissing a young woman on August 14, 1945 in Times Square. (The photograph is known under various names: V–J day in Times Square, V–Day, etc.[7]) Because Eisenstaedt was photographing rapidly changing events during the V-J Day celebrations, he stated that he didn't get a chance to obtain names and details, which has encouraged a number of mutually incompatible claims to the identity of the subjects.
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1 comment:

WILLIAM E. MARKS' BLOG said...

Nice to see this article reflecting on my friend, Eisie's, photographic journey. I harbor many fine memories of traveling around Martha's Vineyard and taking photographs with Eisie of various scenes. Besides my documenting Eisie taking the last photos of his life when he photographed the Clintons, I also photographed Eisie photographing Katherine Graham, Bill Styron,and other Vineyard people. I also photographed Eisie in every day life on Martha's Vineyard and at his home and office in New York.

Toward the later part of his life, I helped Eisie into and out of his wheelchair, and did my best to make the last weeks of his life as comfortable as possible. I am glad I was with Eisie when he died and had the honor of closing the eyes of a photographer who had witnessed so much.