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Transcription: [00:05:08]
[[Galaxy theme music]]
{SPEAKER name="Ann Carroll"}
Alfred Eisenstaedt, a great photographer says part of it is luck. This is Smithsonian Galaxy, I'm Ann Carroll. For 36 years, Alfred Eisenstaedt brought us some of the finest and best known pictures in Life Magazine. He's known as the Father of Photojournalism and he's photographed famous events and people around the world.
[00:05:35]
Through his pictures, you almost feel you know his subjects. At the Smithsonian recently, I asked Eisenstaedt how he achieved that closeness.
[00:05:44]

{SPEAKER name= "Alfred Eisenstaedt"}
Because I approach people in a very relaxed mood and they trust me and the lesson is don't be in awe of anybody and the higher the person is in rank or personality, the easier it is to talk to him.

[00:05:59]
{SPEAKER name="Ann Carroll"}
Perhaps Eisenstaedt's most famous picture shows a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square on the day the Japanese surrendered in 1945. Some have wondered if he staged the picture, but Eisenstaedt says no.

[00:06:13]
{SPEAKER name= "Alfred Eisenstaedt"}
It was great luck because that sailor kissed every girl and every woman everything in sight but no one looked good in the picture. My great luck was that the woman he grabbed at that time was a slim looking nurse dressed in white. She just appeared there, but I ran ahead of them and anticipated something may look good.

[00:06:40]
{SPEAKER name="Ann Carroll"}
Eisenstat has had no trouble with most of his subjects, but then there was the time he photographed Ernest Hemingway. The writer showed up bare chested and Eisenstaedt asked him to put on a shirt. Hemingway answered,

{SPEAKER name= "Alfred Eisenstaedt"}
"Why do you want a shirt?
[00:06:53]
What do you need a shirt for? You look at me, my strength, my muscles, my looks, they all women love me, my lady Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, they love my body." I says, look I want to tell you something. I have muscles, too. Just see look here. This impressed him very much. "Murray, Murray, come look at this little papa here." [[background laughter]]
[00:07:13]

He called me little papa, anyway, I got along fine.

{SPEAKER name="Ann Carroll"}
Yes, Eisenstaedt got along fine and modern photography has been the richer for it. Recently turned 81, Alfred Eisenstaedt is now taking pictures for the new LIfe Magazine. Reporting from the Smithsonian Institution, I'm Ann Carroll.
[[Galaxy theme music]]
[00:07:36]

Transcription Notes:
Alfred Eisenstaedt (Eisie) www.artnet.com/artists/alfred-eisenstaedt