Image: Weegee
Cross-posted from Please Kill Me. [By Alan Bisbort]
“Arthur Fellig (1899-1968), aka Weegee, was a hustler, carny barker and photojournalist all rolled into one rotund, cigar-chomping figure. The “naked city” of New York was his subject. He roamed its streets at night like a vampire in search of blood, sweat and tears. He trained his Speed Graphic with the flashbulb attachment on the city when it had its guard down. Like all hustlers, he cut corners and rubbed “the swells” the wrong way. But he left behind an indelible legacy that defined tabloid photojournalism and even film noir.”
“The raw Weegee most people know is based on only ten years of freelance tabloid photos taken from 1935 to 1945, culminating with the publication of Naked City, a photography book as important to American photography as Robert Frank’s The Americans, Berenice Abbott’s Changing New York or Diane Arbus’s Aperture Monograph.”
WEEGEE: NEW YORK’S FIRST PUNK PHOTOGRAPHER
Editor’s Note: Weegee, Berenice Abbott, and Diane Arbus were all ASMP Members.