Alfred Eisenstaedt, or "Eisie" as he is now known, has often been called the father of photojournalism. In fact, Eisenstaedt is one of a handful of pioneering photographers who, beginning in Germany shortly after World War I, began producing candid photoreportage. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Germany had more illustrated magazines with greater circulation than any other country. The aggressively imaginative ideas of the editors of these magazines established a style of innovative, unposed candid photography that has now become the norm.
With the ascendancy of Hitler in 1933, however, these magazines folded and most of the editors and photographers left Germany for France, England, and the United States. Eisenstaedt was one who found his way to America where, along with Margaret Bourke-White, Peter Stackpole, and Tom McAvoy, he became one of the original four staff photographers on Henry Luce's new magazine, Life. The first issue of Life appeared in November, 1936, and contained Eisenstaedt's pictures on five of its pages. The second issue had an Eisenstaedt picture on the cover. He has been with Life ever since, up to the time of its demise in 1972, and again since its revival as a monthly in 1978. In those years, he has produced more than ninety Life covers and worked on more than 1,600 assignments.
New Celebrity Status
In the last months of 1986, at least three events came together to bring renewed attention to Eisenstaedt's photographs and career, First, Life magazine published its massive Special Anniversary Issue in is fiftieth year, containing a tribute to Eisie. Second, on November 12, the International Center of Photography (ICP) on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue at Ninety-fourth Street, opened a retrospective exhibit of Eisenstaedt's work entitled Alfred Eisenstaedt: "Eisie at 88." Third, on December 2, the Life Gallery of Photography, on the twenty-eighth floor of the Time-Life Building, opened an exhibit of mounted and framed Eisenstaedt photographs. The ICP show is especially noteworthy because it is lovingly and gracefully mounted and exhibited, and because it contains an intelligently chosen selection of work from Eisenstaedt's entire career, including most of those photographs that are universally known, as well as some never before published or seen.
Eisenstaedt is especially known for his remarkable eye and his quick hand. What his eye sees, his hand shoots, as if there were no intervening thought. When he goes to photograph, he has no preconceived notions but sees and then responds to what he sees. He also had the ability always to come back with the pictures; Wilson Hicks of Life called him a "one-man task force."
Eisenstaedt has always used a minimum of equipment - after 1932 a Leica and possibly a Rolleiflex, usually the available light occasionally with a supplemental lamp or two, but never the strobes, cables, and assistants that most photographers now employ. He shuns technical jargon and concerns - his early pictures were taken before he owned or even knew about an exposure meter. As he says, if you have the latest or best equipment but do not have the eye, it doesn't mean anything. He has been called a perpetual amateur.
Although he has always liked or even preferred photographing nature and scenery, Eisie is best known for his pictures of people. He asked for more assignments to photograph
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