Who photographed the famous V-J Day kiss in New York’s Times Square?

Alfred Eisenstaedt photographed the famous V-J Day kiss in New York’s Times Square.

Eisenstaedt was working for Life magazine when he photographed a sailor kissing a woman in a white dress amid the crowds celebrating Japan’s surrender on August 14, 1945. Life published the image in its famous “Victory Celebration” issue, and it became one of the most recognizable photographs associated with the end of World War II.

The photograph is often called V-J Day in Times Square or The Kiss. For decades, the identities of the two people were disputed, and several men and women claimed to be the subjects. The sailor was later identified as George Mendonsa, while the woman is widely identified as Greta Zimmer Friedman, though the spontaneous scene was not formally posed.

Eisenstaedt’s image is sometimes confused with a different Times Square photograph by Victor Jorgensen, which shows a similar kiss from another angle. Eisenstaedt’s version is the more widely reproduced image.