Interview with a Photographer from the American Magazine "Life" - One

Author: John Loengard (USA) / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: Alfred Eisenstaedt (hereafter Eisenstaedt): In my life, who have I photographed the most? I tell you, it is Sophia Loren. I met her in 1961. An editor from Life magazine called me and said, “We have a good assignment for you. When will you finish your story?” I was then photographing a story about Harvard’s graduation ceremony, and I wanted to expand on it a bit, so I replied, “Perhaps tomorrow or the day after.” The editor said, “You must go to Rome immediately to photograph Sophia Loren.” “I’ll finish in 15 minutes,” I said. The next day, I left for Rome. Sophia was filming a movie there. She was very kind to me, and I could shoot freely. About a year later, a text reporter from Life magazine asked Sophia, “Why did you let Eisenstaedt take pictures so freely?” She said, “Because he reminded me of my gynecologist.”
When I first started taking photos, I never thought photography would become a profession. My first camera was a birthday gift from my uncle, given to me when I was 11 years old in Berlin. It was a Kodak No. 3 folding camera, and I took pictures of things like fountains, leaves, and street scenes—amateur stuff—and developed them myself. I stopped taking photos when I was drafted into the army in 1916. I was just a child soldier until 1925, when I bought a Zeiss Ikonta 3 camera with 9×12 cm plate film, and that’s when I started photographing again. I still took pictures of landscapes, spiderwebs, forests, and such. By 1927, when I went on vacation with my parents to Bohemia, I took a photo of a woman playing tennis at 4 p.m. Her silhouette captivated me, so I took another picture, including other elements in the scene. When I returned to Berlin, I showed the photo to a friend who also enjoyed photography. He said, “You can enlarge this.” I asked, “What does enlarging mean?” I had never heard the term before. I went to his place, and he showed me a new invention mounted on the wall, made of wood. He demonstrated how it could enlarge the woman playing tennis in my photo while cropping out the messy background. That’s how my photography career began. I saw all the possibilities, and before, I had only been printing photos, which were only 3×4 inches. I bought an enlarger and turned my parents’ bathroom into a darkroom—no one could use that bathroom anymore. Someone said, “You should show this photo to someone at the magazine ‘Der Welfspiegel.’” That magazine means “Mirror of the World,” a bit like the Sunday supplement of The New York Times. The editor told me, “I really like this photo.” When the photo was published, the caption read, “Sunset, shadows lengthen.” The editor said, “Give me some more photos like this.” Two weeks later, I went to the Ahrat Bahnhof in Berlin and photographed an elderly woman crossing the tracks. There were huge steam locomotives parked there, and the sunlight was hitting her hair. The editor liked the photo, and they paid me three or four dollars—about 12 marks—I didn’t even know photos could make money. At the time, I was a button and ribbon salesman, and photography was just a hobby. I knew nothing about it. I was never a good salesman, and I had no interest in the job. What I loved was art, theater, and music. That editor told me, “If you want to keep going, you should buy a camera like the one Dr. Erik Salomon used.” Dr. Salomon quickly became a hero in my eyes. He photographed important politicians and could capture their natural expressions while avoiding guards. So I bought an Ermanox camera and started taking night photos. I liked this type of photography, and I also took photos of theater actresses. P21-22