[1] 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 American sailor kissing a nurse in a "dancelike dip" which "summed up the euphoria many Americans felt as the war came to a close", in the words of his obituary.

[2] He was "renowned for his ability to capture memorable images of important people in the news" and for his candid photographs taken with a small 35mm Leica camera, typically with natural lighting.

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.

Other notable early pictures by Eisenstaedt include his depiction of a waiter at the ice rink of the Grand Hotel in St. Moritz in 1932 and Joseph Goebbels at the League of Nations in Geneva in 1933.

Oppression in Hitler's Nazi Germany caused them to emigrate to the U.S.[8] They arrived in 1935 and settled in New York, where he subsequently became a naturalized citizen,[9] and joined fellow Associated Press émigrés Leon Daniel and Celia Kutschuk in their PIX Publishing photo agency founded that year.

[10] It also helped Eisenstaedt create a more relaxed atmosphere when photographing famous people where he was able to capture more natural poses and expressions: "They don't take me too seriously with my little camera," he stated.

"[10] It was a style he learned from his 35 years in Europe, where he preferred making informal, unposed portraits, along with extended picture stories.

As a result, Life began using more such photo stories, with the magazine becoming a recognized source of such photojournalism of the world's luminaries.

[10] Eisenstaedt, known as "Eisie" to his close friends, enjoyed his annual August vacations on the island of Martha's Vineyard for 50 years.

The session took place at the Granary Gallery in West Tisbury on Martha's Vineyard and was documented by a photograph published in People magazine on September 13, 1993.

[12] After first settling in New York City in 1935, Eisenstaedt lived in Jackson Heights, Queens (NYC) for the rest of his life.

[13] He died in August 1995 at age 96 at his Martha's Vineyard vacation cottage[2] named "Pilot House", in the company of his sister-in-law, Lucille Kaye, and a photographer friend, William E.

[16][17]) Because Eisenstaedt was photographing rapidly changing events during the V-J Day celebrations, he stated that he did not get a chance to obtain names and details, which has encouraged a number of mutually incompatible claims to the identities of the subjects.

[23][24] Since 1998, the Alfred Eisenstaedt Awards for Magazine Photography have been administered by Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.