:oskar lewis weblog

Weegee’s subjects are gangsters, transvestites arrested by the police, the homeless, victims of accidents or murders, but also lovers, people on daytrips and protagonists of jazz clubs, variety shows and cinemas.

Weegee, whose real name was Arthur Fellig, was born in 1899 in Zloczow, Galicia (present-day Zolochiv, Ukraine). From 1935 onwards, he worked as a freelance police reporter, gave up photoreporting in the mid-1940s and turned to advertising photography for magazines such as Life, Look and Vogue, and became a photo caricaturist and a producer of short films.

Here and there in the exhibition spaces are extracts of texts written by Weegee. I liked this one:

My car became my home. It was a two-seater, with a special extra-large luggage compartment. I kept everything in there, an extra camera, cases of flash bulbs, extra-loaded holders, a typewriter, firemen’s boots, boxes of cigars, salami, infra-red films for shooting in the dark, uniforms, disguises, a change of underwear, and extra shoes and socks. I was no longer tied to the teletype machine at police headquarters. I had my wings. I no longer had to wait for crime to come to me; i could go after it. The police radio was my life line. My camera… my life and my love… was my Aladdin’s lamp.

In 1938, he was actually the only New York newspaper reporter with a permit to have a portable police-band shortwave radio.

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