Alfred Eisenstaedt was born on January 22, 1904 in Heidelberg, Germany. As a young man, he was drawn to photography because it showed the world as it really was. "I wanted to show that there were no borders, no nationalities, no differences between people; that we were all part of one big family." He immigrated to the United States in 1938 and began working for Life Magazine as an associate editor. Among other things, he photographed President Roosevelt signing the defense bill and the first atomic bomb test at Trinity Site in New Mexico (1945)
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Shortly thereafter, he left Life for Vogue, where he stayed until 1956. He returned to Life for one final assignment in 1960. After retiring from Life, he moved to Connecticut and painted watercolors of his cat and dog.
He died at age eighty-nine on October 1, 1984.