Weegee: Paparazzi or Social Documentarian?

Weegee was born Usher Fellig (June 12, 1899 - December 26, 1968), and
became Arthur Fellig when his family immigrated from an area of Eastern
Europe, now Ukraine, to New York in 1910, fleeing persecution.

Weegee is a phonetic spelling of Ouija, a nickname given to him due to
his uncanny ability to quickly arrive at the scene of fires, crimes, or
other calamities. Weegee must have been well respected by officials
since he was the only reporter/photographer in 1938 to have a portable
police-band radio in his car. He also maintained a full dark
room in his trunk. Since he worked primarily at night he was able to
develop his prints, type articles, and deliver quickly to the
newspapers. He also kept salami, a change of clothes, and plenty of
cigars on hand.

But Weegee did not attain his success and respect overnight. He started
in photography by dropping out of school to help support his family by
working as a tintype photographer. Eventually he began assisting a
commercial photographer in a kind of photography bootcamp. After
several months of this he quit to become a street photographer with a
pony cart. Weegee had to give this up because it cost more to care for
the pony than he was earning. At age eighteen he moved out of his
parents house to live on his own. He slept in shelters, missions, and
finally on the street. He sought shelter in parks and the Pennsylvania
Railroad Station, and went through a series of service and labor jobs.
He kept looking for a job in photography.

In 1918 he finally snagged a job at a professional photography studio
in Manhattan where he worked for three years honing his skills. In 1921
he went to work for the photography department of the New York Times,
then later worked for Acme Newspapers until 1935.

It was about this time that Weegee began his freelance career. He had
paid his dues by working in dark rooms as assistant and apprentice, he
had undoubtedly made many contacts in the world of commercial and
news photography. He claims he knew every sign post, every street
corner, every cop, and every transient in New York City. How?
Probably because he was a bit transient himself. He lived out of his car
cruising the streets of New York City all night or hanging at his
headquarters at the Police Department. It helped that he rented a one
room apartment across the street to always be close to the action. He
started selling his photos to many newspapers nationally and
internationally. This also begins the period of Weegee’s most prolific
time period in New York between 1935 and 1947.

Weegee is best known for a kind of tabloid photography that can be as
sensational as Jerry Springer or as charming as Norman Rockwell. His
photographs are incredibly voyeuristic and seem to catch people in
candid and intimate moments of both joy and distress. He is able to
capture intimate moments as inobtrusively as possible by using infrared
flashbulbs. Although this would create a kind of flash, the reddish
light must be significantly less than a white light flash.

Can you imagine Weegee sneaking into this theater and negotiating this
shot with a regular flash? (“Don’t look at me, just keep doing what
you’re doing.”) It is as if we are witnessing a most private moment in
the flash of Weegee’s light. The other audience members seem
oblivious. The flash illuminates a tender moment in the middle of a dark
public room. You are the voyeur watching the oblivious couple glowing
in their own affection.

Weegee was up all night in New York like a kind of night stalker,
looking for action to photograph, not all of it pleasant. Below to the
left is a photo of a woman being restrained by the police. To the right
is a grisly murder victim face down on the sidewalk.

Weegee did photograph all aspects of New York; it's crime, criminals,
transsexuals, homeless, socialites, firemen & fires, policemen,
children, and crowd scenes.

I think Weegee was a social documentarian to whom we owe a great
thanks for chronicling NYC at night for a couple of decades. His early
fire photos are not as sensational and definitely worth a look. While
Weegee is indeed interested in snapping photos that will sell he is also
clearly in love with the city, the night, and a true and vast
representation of what he saw. No matter how you want to classify
Weegee, as journalist, photographer, ambulance chaser or shameless
self-promoter, perhaps his greatest legacy is his persistence and
productivity. It is estimated that he took over 20,000 photographs,
many developed from the trunk of his car. While he may have portrayed
himself as a self-taught eccentric photographer, he was indeed a master
at capturing humanity in all of its beauty and tragedy. It is also
clear that he learned a lot in his early days of working for other
photographers.

Historians might judge a great artist by their influence. Weegee is
cited as an influence by many other photographers including Joel Peter
Witkin and Lena Herzog and I’d be willing to bet that Robert
Mapplethorpe and Diane Arbus knew Weegee’s work. Weegee’s book
Naked City, which is a loving chronicle of some of his best work and for
which he is perhaps best known, was made into a movie and subsequent
TV show. Weegee was also an uncredited consultant for the movie Dr.
Strangelove.

If you are interested in reading more about Weegee there a couple of
great places to look. www.weegee.org is a great place to start. It seems
to be a bit unorganized in that they are not 100% sure which photos are
Weegee’s and which are by others. But if you want to see a significant
collection of Weegee’s early (mostly fire) photos, this is a good place
to spend several hours.

There are also interviews with the man himself:
http://www.soundportraits.org/on-air/weegee/

You could also read his book: The Naked City, but remember it is
Weegee as how many historians have chosen to remember him, somewhat
sensational and over the top.

-Mary Rayme