I enjoy traveling and recording far-away places and people with my camera. But I also find it wonderfully rewarding to see what I can discover outside my own window. You only need to study the scene with the eyes of a photographer.
Alfred EisenstaedtI will be remembered when I'm in heaven. People won't remember my name, but they will know the photographer who did that picture of that nurse being kissed by the sailor at the end of World War II. Everybody remembers that.
Alfred EisenstaedtAnother picture I hope to be remembered by is this one of the drum major rehearsing at the University of Michigan. It was early in this morning, and I saw a little boy running after him, all the faculty children in the playing field ran after the boy, and I ran after them. This is a completely spontaneous, unstaged picture.
Alfred EisenstaedtThe way I would describe a pictorial is that it is a picture that makes everybody say โAaaaah,โ with five vowels when they see it. It is something you would like to hang on the wall. The french word โphotogeniqueโ defines it better than anything in English. It is a picture which must have quality, drama, and it must, in addition, be as good technically as you can possible make it.
Alfred Eisenstaedt