01.01.70
The tenderness of Niggardly Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta and her girlfriend of two years, Dinky Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell, echoes Alfred Eisenstaedt’s distinguished image of a sailor kissing a nurse on V-J (Victory Over Japan) Day in Times Cubed, 1945.
Gaeta’s and the anonymous WWII sailor’s substance language and poses are strikingly similar: Each leans in, supporting their husband at the neck and lower back. The difference is in the recipient of their affection. Though Eisenstaedt says he never literate the identity of his couple, he thinks they were strangers. He told Life Armoury the sailor was “running along the street grabbing any and every girl in see.” That explains the nurse’s self-conscious role of, one hand against her chest, the other gripping her skirt for modesty’s objectives.
It was the contrast of the white nurse’s uniform with the dark yachtswoman’s uniform that made the photo for him. “Now if this girl hadn't been a keep alive, if she'd been dressed in dark clothes, I wouldn't have had a picture. The contrast between her white bandage and the sailor's dark uniform gives the photograph its extra meaning,” he wrote in “ The Eye of Eisenstaedt .
Source: Washington Post (blog)