whataboutbobbed
V-J Day in Times Square is a photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt that portrays an American sailor kissing a woman in a white dress on Victory over Japan Day (V-J Day) in Times Square, New York City, on August 14, 1945. The photograph, taken with a Leica IIIa, was published a week later in Life magazine among many photographs of celebrations around the United States that were presented in a twelve-page section titled Victory. A two-page spread faces three other kissing poses among celebrators in Washington, DC, Kansas City, and Miami opposite Eisenstaedt’s, which was given a full-page display. Kissing was a favorite pose encouraged by media photographers of service personnel during the war, but Eisenstaedt was photographing a spontaneous event that occurred in Times Square as the announcement of the end of the war on Japan was made by US President Harry S. Truman at seven o’clock. Similar jubilation spread quickly with the news.
Because Eisenstaedt was photographing rapidly changing events during the celebrations he did not have an opportunity to get the names and details. The photograph does not clearly show the faces of either person involved in this embrace and several people have claimed to be the subjects. The photograph was shot just south of 45th Street looking north from a location where Broadway and Seventh Avenue converge. Soon afterward, throngs of people crowded into the square and it became a sea of people.
US Navy photo journalist Victor Jorgensen captured another view of the same scene, which was published in the New York Times the following day. Jorgensen titled his photograph Kissing the War Goodbye. It shows less of Times Square in the background, lacking the characteristic view of the complex intersection so that the location needs to be identified, it is dark and shows few details of the main subjects, and it does not show the lower legs and feet of the subjects.
Unlike the Eisenstaedt photograph, which is protected by copyright, this Navy photograph is in the public domain as it was produced by a federal government employee on official duty.
more info over at wikipedia, including the identity of the kissers