Hurricane in the Atlantic. Photographed from SS. Queen Elisabeth, 1940-tallet

Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898 –1995) was a German-born American photographer and photojournalist. He began his career in pre-World War II Germany and after moving to the U.S. achieved prominence as a staff photographer for Life Magazine, which featured more than 90 of his pictures on its covers with over 2,500 photo stories published. While working as a belt and button salesman in the 1920s in Weimar Germany, Eisenstaedt began taking photographs as a freelancer for the Pacific and Atlantic Photos' Berlin office in 1928. The office was taken over by the Associated Press in 1931. Among his most famous cover photographs was V-J Day in Times Square, taken during the V-J Day celebration in New York City, showing "an exuberant American sailor kissing a nurse in a dancelike dip [that] summed up the euphoria many Americans felt as the war came to a close." Eisenstaedt was "renowned for his ability to capture memorable images of important people in the news, including statesmen, movie stars and artists" and for his candid photographs, taken with a small 35mm Leica camera and typically with only natural lighting.