Who photographed the iconic V-J Day kiss in Times Square?

Alfred Eisenstaedt photographed the iconic V-J Day kiss in Times Square.

Eisenstaedt captured the image on August 14, 1945, during celebrations in New York City after news spread that Japan had surrendered. The photograph shows a U.S. Navy sailor kissing a woman in a white uniform in the middle of Times Square.

The image was published in Life magazine about a week later and became one of the best-known photographs associated with the end of World War II. Eisenstaedt used a Leica IIIa camera and took four frames of the encounter.

The photograph is often confused with a second image of the same event taken by Navy photographer Victor Jorgensen. Jorgensen’s photograph was published by The New York Times and showed the scene from another angle. The identities of the people in Eisenstaedt’s picture were disputed for decades, although Greta Zimmer Friedman and George Mendonsa became the widely accepted identifications.