"People who see this picture often ask me if I posed it, and the answer is: No, it just happened. I was at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1951 photographing the school's famous marching band (...) That afternoon I saw the drum major strutting around all by himself. A group of kids saw him, and suddenly they ran out and started imitating and imitating him. It happened so fast that I hardly had time to concentrate.... The basic rule is that you have to be there. If you're there and react fast enough, it's good." (Alfred Eisenstaedt)

PROVENANCE Family Estate, Allan Leas (nephew of Eisenstaedt).

LITERATURE Eisenstaedt, Remembrances, Massachusetts, 1990, p. 72-73; Alfred Eisenstaedt (ed.), Eisenstaedt on Eisenstaedt. A self-portrait, New York 1985, p. 76; Alfred Eisenstaedt, Witness to our Time, New York 1966, p. 312-313; The Eye of Eisenstaedt, London 1969, p. 60-61.