The great Alfred Eisenstaedt’s photographic vision wasn’t limited to the intimate portraits he produced of some of the 20th century’s most famous faces. After researching seemingly endless negatives, contact sheets, and Eisenstaedt prints, LIFE.com photo editor Liz Ronk rediscovered that the long-time LIFE photographer very often crowned his assignments with one last shot: creating captivating self-portraits, posing — and frequently clowning — with his subjects.
In tribute to the endearing penchant of one of the 20th century’s indispensable photographers — a penchant to add a quiet, personal, visual coda to so much of his life’s work — LIFE.com offers a selection of some of the most revealing and unexpected of Alfred Eisensteadt’s singularly charming self-portraits.
Pictured: Marilyn Monroe and Alfred Eisenstaedt at Monroe’s Beverly Hills home, 1953.
(see more — Alfred Eisenstaedt’s Surprising Self Portraits)
