Who photographed the famous Times Square sailor’s kiss on V-J Day in 1945?

Alfred Eisenstaedt photographed the famous Times Square sailor’s kiss on V-J Day in 1945.

Eisenstaedt captured the image in New York City on August 14, 1945, during spontaneous celebrations of Japan’s surrender. The photograph shows a U.S. Navy sailor kissing a woman in a white uniform in Times Square. It became one of the most recognizable images associated with the end of World War II.

The photograph was published in Life magazine about a week later as part of a large section on victory celebrations across the United States. Eisenstaedt used a Leica IIIa camera and made four frames of the moment. He did not obtain the subjects’ names at the time, which led to decades of competing identity claims.

The image is often treated as a romantic scene, but the woman later identified as Greta Zimmer Friedman said the kiss was not consensual. The sailor was eventually identified as George Mendonsa. The picture’s date also reflects U.S. time: many countries marked V-J Day on August 15.