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Photography © The Estate of Arthur Fellig http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W... was the pseudonym of Arthur Fellig (June 12, 1899 - December 26, 1968), an American photographer and photojournalist, known for his stark black and white street photography.Weegee was born Usher Fellig in Złoczew, near Lemberg, Austrian-Galicia (later known as Złoczów, Poland, and now Zolochiv, Ukraine). His name was changed to Arthur when he came with his family to live in New York in 1909, fleeing antisemitism.Fellig's nickname was a phonetic rendering of Ouija, due to his frequent arrival at scenes only minutes after crimes, fires or other emergencies were reported to authorities. He is variously said to have named himself Weegee, or to have been named by either the girls at Acme or by a police officer.He is best known as a candid news photographer whose stark black-and-white shots documented street life in New York City. Weegee's photos of crime scenes, car-wreck victims in pools of their own blood, overcrowded urban beaches and various grotesques are still shocking, though some, like the juxtaposition of society grandes dames in ermines and tiaras and a glowering street woman at the Metropolitan Opera (The Critic, 1943), turned out to have been staged. In 1938, Fellig was the only New York newspaper reporter with a permit to have a portable police-band shortwave radio. He maintained a complete darkroom in his trunk of his car, to expedite getting his free-lance product to the newspapers. Weegee worked mostly at night; he listened closely to broadcasts and often beat authorities to the scene.Most of his notable photographs were taken with very basic press photographer equipment and methods of the era, a 4x5 Speed Graphic camera preset at f/16, @ 1/200 of a second with flashbulbs and a set focal length of ten feet. He had no formal photographic training but was a self-taught photographer and relentless self-promoter. He is sometimes said not to have had any knowledge of the New York art photography scene; but in 1943 the Museum of Modern Art included several of his photos in an exhibition. He was later included in another MoMA show organized by Edward Steichen, and he lectured at the New School for Social Research. He also undertook advertising and editorial assignments for Life and Vogue magazines, among others.His acclaimed first book collection of photographs, Naked City (1945), became the inspiration for a major 1948 movie The Naked City, and later the title of a pioneering realistic television police drama series.A 1992 motion picture, The Public Eye, starred Joe Pesci as a 1940s tabloid photographer who has a police radio in his car. TV Guide states that Pesci's character is "based, of course, on Weegee"

Channel: Education Uploaded: November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am Author: Cybelephotography

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