Victor Jorgensen made the alternate Times Square photograph titled “Kissing the War Goodbye” on V-J Day.
Jorgensen was a U.S. Navy photojournalist who photographed the same spontaneous kiss captured more famously by Alfred Eisenstaedt. Jorgensen’s image was taken from a different angle and published in The New York Times on the following day. Unlike Eisenstaedt’s photograph, the Navy image was produced by a federal employee on official duty and entered the public domain.
The scene occurred in Times Square on 14 August 1945, when crowds celebrated news that Japan had accepted the Allied surrender terms. The sailor was later identified as George Mendonsa, while the woman was identified as Greta Zimmer Friedman, a dental assistant wearing a white uniform.
The two photographs are often confused because they show the same embrace. Eisenstaedt’s version appeared in Life magazine and became the more famous image.