Who is the practitioner (what is their name?) and when were they practicing?
The photograph was captured by German-born American photographer and photojournalist, Alfred Eisenstaedt. He became a professional photographer in 1929 for a range of publications in Germany before moving to the United States, where he became a staff photographer for Life Magazine. His photographs has been featured over 90 times across Life Magazine covers and over 2,500 photo stories published as content.
What is the title of the photo you have chosen to analyse?
This chosen photograph by Eisenstaedt is entitled ‘V-J Day in Times Square’. It is also known as V-Day or The Kiss.
With the photo you are examining when was it produced (date)?
August 14th 1945 during Victory over Japan Day in New York City’s Time Square landscape where U.S. Navy sailors and the general public were celebrating. The exact location was south of 45th Street where Broadway and Seventh Avenue converge.
How was the photo authored?
The photograph was taken by a Leica III; a rangefinder camera created in 1933.
How was the photo published?
Since Alfred Eisenstaedt was a staff photographer for Life Magazine, this particular photograph was published in the magazine amongst other celebration photographs that highlighted the essence of the day. It was apart of a larger twelve-page spread entitled “Victory Celebrations”. V-J Day in Times Square coveted a full page display. A limitation of having this photo published in a print publication is that it wouldn’t be as easily accessible to the mass audience. Only consumers of Life Magazine would be able to access said photograph. This is an example of a constraint most photographers had to face back in the 1940’s; previous to age of digitalisation and the Internet.
How was the photo distributed?
According to Joanna Zylinska, photography in its’ purest form is “perceived as a tool for capturing and archiving personal memories” (Zylinksa, 2016). As previously stated before, Eisenstaedt was on site to capture images for the magazine and only had one chance to capture this truly genuine and candid moment in the haze of frenzy and celebration. It happened so quickly, he didn’t get the chance to get the names of the couple. It was a form of “naturalistic documentation” as described by Liz Wells when explaining photography in the early stages of life. Previous to the introduction of Photoshop and similar editing suites alike, a photograph “rendered a complete and faithful image of its subjects.” (Wells, 2015)
Over the years, this photograph has been re-intepreted and redistributed for consumption. Examples of this include cameos and reimagined in:
- Bronze life size sculpture in 2005
- Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009)
- Watchmen (2009)
- Letters to Juliet (2010)
References
- Kuc, Kamila, and Joanna Zylinska, editors. Photomediations: A Reader. Open Humanities Press, 2016, http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/ titles/photomediations/
- Wells, Liz. Photography: A Critical Introduction. 5th ed., Routledge, New York, 2015. (pp. 9-27 Thinking about photography: debates, historically and now
- Eisenstaedt, Alfred. “V-J Day in Times Square”, Life Magazine, 1929