Weegee
Weegee was born in 1899 in Zlothew near Lemberg. Then, the city was part of the Austrian province of Galicia, today part of Ukraine. His real name was Usher (later Arthur) Fellig. He was the second of seven children from Jewish parents. Weegee shot the majority of his photos in Manhattan, New york between 1907 and the early 1940's.
As Weegee worked mainly as a freelance newspaper photographer, his photographs are themed around crime and scandalous news stories of his era.
They are uniquely characteristic of their time and represent a remarkable document of that time.
All of his photographs are in black and white, varying between landscape and portrait.The tonal quality of these negatives are, for the most part, quite stunning. All the more so when you realize that many were developed in the trunk of his car! Sadly, the lack of washing facilities and shortcuts taken to make deadlines have left many of them stained and discolored with mineral and chemical deposits. Many have also suffered from poor storage and mechanical damage.
Using a wide-angle lens with a small aperture (f16 to f32) would have given Weegee the depth of field to keep everything in focus. The light is coming from behind Weegee, directly down, and the effect of the wide-angle lens is to exagerate perspective. There is a lot of evidence of Weegee arranging images before taking the photo (even the suggestion he might have arranged crime scenes before the police arrived), but he wasn't a printer.
Weegee was born in 1899 in Zlothew near Lemberg. Then, the city was part of the Austrian province of Galicia, today part of Ukraine. His real name was Usher (later Arthur) Fellig. He was the second of seven children from Jewish parents. Weegee shot the majority of his photos in Manhattan, New york between 1907 and the early 1940's.
As Weegee worked mainly as a freelance newspaper photographer, his photographs are themed around crime and scandalous news stories of his era.
They are uniquely characteristic of their time and represent a remarkable document of that time.
All of his photographs are in black and white, varying between landscape and portrait.The tonal quality of these negatives are, for the most part, quite stunning. All the more so when you realize that many were developed in the trunk of his car! Sadly, the lack of washing facilities and shortcuts taken to make deadlines have left many of them stained and discolored with mineral and chemical deposits. Many have also suffered from poor storage and mechanical damage.
Weegee's photographs were represented in books written by himself which included:
- Weegee by Weegee - 1961
- Weegee's world
- Weegee and Naked City (Defining Moments in American Photography)
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| From the 1958 LP “Famous Photographers Tell How”. |
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| Summer, the Upper East side, 1937 |
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| Crowd at Coney Island, 1940. |
Bibliogaphy
- www.weegee.org
- www.amber-online.com
- www.en.wikipedia.org
- www.google.com
- www.all-art.org
- www.focusontofilm.com
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