Weegee

Photo Copyright Arthur Felig


Reading all the tabloid buzz about the murdered forensic student last seen on the lower East Side of Manhattan reminded me of Weegee, the photographer who invented a whole new genre for us photojournalists. Remember Weegee's pix of people that watching the first 3D flix in the 50's? Weegee, my hero, worked out of the trunk of his car which he used as darkroom through the 30's and 40's.


Weegee As Blogger?

If Weegee were alive today he would take to blogging like a fish to water...posting his pix in real time. Instead of smoking cigars while souping his prints in hypo Weegee today would probably be found at the closest Starbuck's with a PC, uploading his pix using wireless.

Norma Devine is Sammy's Mae West, December 4, 1944

"He will take his camera and ride off in search of new evidence that his city, even in her most drunken and disorderly and pathetic moments, is beautiful."

- William McCleery in Naked City

"F8 and Be There"

"F8 and Be There," he was quoted as saying. Using guide numbers for his flash he set the aperture on his Speed Graphic 4x5 press camera to insure enough depth of field to keep everything sharp. Stepping back he measured the space between his camera and the subject.

When I read about the Falls, I thought of Weegee's Bowery Follies, where Weegee tok breaks between photographing murders. The photos taken at Sammy's,

...was the scene of many of Weegee's most lighthearted and humanistic photographs, a great contrast to what was taking place on the street or curb or just outside the front door. The "poor man's Stork Club" became a refuge for Weegee, a safe haven allowing him to escape the blood and guts that his more salable photographs contained.
-Miles Barth

The web-site Weegee's World: Life, Death and the Human Drama was created in conjunction with the publication of Weegee's World by Miles Barth an exhibition at the International Center of Photography Midtown that was up from November 21, 1997 through March 8, 1998. Take a look at images taken in movie theaters,Weegee's World: Movie Goers he shot using infrared film.