Weegee

Arthur Fellig , born Usher Fellig and more known under the Pseudonym of Weegee (June 12th 1899 - December 26th 1968), is a American Photographe famous for its Photographie S in black and white of the night life, particularly that of its town of predilection, New York.

First steps

Usher Fellig was born in 1899 with Złoczew, close to Lviv, a city belonging then to the Empire Austro-Hungarian and from now on in Ukraine (Galicie). Fleeing the rise of the anti-semitism, its family flees Europe in 1910 to join Bernard Fellig, the father, who has immigrant with the the United States shortly after the birth of Usher. On its arrival in America, the name of the young boy is changed into Arthur .

His/her father, who is rabbi, settles then with Ellis Island with his wife, Arthur and his three brothers. In 1914, Weegee leaves the school (8th rank) to provide for the financial needs for its family by means of many odd jobs (salesman of cars, confectioner, etc).

One day, it is made take in photograph in the street by a travelling photographer. This meeting would be the catch which makes it choose the Photographie like trade. The young man buys a Camera of occasion and starts to take stereotypes of the children out of Sunday clothes to propose the tests with the easy families. In 1917, it decides to leave the family hearth by refusal of the intransigent Judaïsme preached by his/her father. Weegee knows a period of vagrancy at that time, railway refuges in Gare S, in search of a hot place where to sleep.

Professional path

In 1918, Weegee obtains, after many attempts, an employment in the photographic studio Ducket & Adler . This new employment enables him to spend its time in the laboratory and to learn the techniques from the pulling. In 1923, 24 years old, he is engaged as employed laboratory by the agency Acme Newspictures , whose activity is to constitute a stock of photographs for the daily press of many American States. Weegee works with the development of negative of many photographers and, in the event of urgency or with unavailability of one of the latter, covers itself the urban events of New York.

After a few years, the agency proposes to him to become full-time photographer. Weegee accepts, but hardly appreciates that its photographs become the property of Acme and that its name is never associated with the photographs which it takes. This period of its life, he on the other hand would have inherited his nickname of photographer. Weegee would be indeed a reference to the spiritual play Ouija, which consists in communicating with the spirits of the late ones, because to the eyes of the female personnel of Acme, the photographer gave the impression of knowing in advance where and when the interesting events will proceed. There was with that a very simple reason: Weegee had in its car a radio connected on the frequencies of the police force and was thus prevented at the same time as the police officers when a drama had just occurred some share. In 1935, Weegee becomes finally independent photographer and exerts in free lance for the American press.

At that time in the United States, the press claims more than one simple documentary step on behalf of the photographers. The Photojournalisme is charged to give an account of the reality of the american company, closest to the events, as well most media that most prosaic. Photographic work must reveal the multiple aspects of the American life by bringing back images of various places and cultural mediums (night life, political meeting, popular environment, etc). This function allows the emancipation of the figure professional and independent of the photographer, and to closely bind its activity to journalism.

The privileged ground of Wegee, it is New York, and particularly its night life, in its places emblematic (cabaret, restaurant, refuge of night, Metropolitan Opera…), and with the wire of its sordid or tragic incidents (crimes, accidents, drownings, fires…). The art of the photographer consists, according to his own expression, “to show how much, in a town of ten million inhabitants, people live in complete loneliness”.

Initially, Weegee begins its night exits about midnight while going to the police station Manhattan. It waits until the news falls on the transcribers from the police force, then goes on the spot of the events to photograph. Condemned by this method to arrive always too late, Weegee buys a car (Chevrolet Chevy Coupe), a radio portable with short waves and a chart of press in order to make profitable its relations with the police officers and to gain in autonomy.

In 1938, “Weegee the Famous” is indeed the first and only photographer to have the privilege to be connected on the radio of the police force. This device enables him to arrive on the spot of crimes, accidents, fires, of suicides, at the same time as the police officers, even front them. Its flash S crépitants gives an account of its still hot scenes where the left traces are not cleaned and are not returned to a certain normality of the daily life by the work of the police officers; the Sang runs out on the roadway, the weapons of the crime strew the ground, smoke invades the atmosphere of the streets, the wheels are still in the hands of the victims of accident, the shoes still under the wheels, the emotional shocks are printed on the photographs.

For 5 dollars the test, Weegee spends its nights in its car and sleeps anywhere to be reactive with the events. The installation of its car is thoroughly studied. It shelters a photographic laboratory in the trunk, of many cameras preloaded in plates, as well as a stock of bulbs of flash and a Typewriter to sign its photographs. In order to hold the frantic rate of the night, Weegee also has Salami, a box filled with Cigare S and a costume of replacement. The photographer gets dressed with full clothing comprising with many pockets with zipper to have the essence of his material on oneself and to avoid mislaying the different components of his apparatus. Weegee considers its car and all that composes its professional effects like its “wings”. On the level of its material, Weegee shows a great fidelity. It uses a Speed Graphic 4x5 with an opening to f/16, 1/200e a second and a focal distance with 10 inches (25 centimetres). All its photographs were carried out with this configuration accompanied by a flash.

Its night generally finishes when, once the developed plates, it goes to the various draftings newspapers before six hours of the morning, so that its pullings are in the first editions of the day. This manner of working confers a certain freedom and autonomy in the choice of its photographs and subjects of report to him. Its main customers are, inter alia, Herald Tribune , The Daily Mirror , New York Daily News , Life , Vogue , Sun . Thanks to this autonomy, Weegee contributed to light a facet of the most ignored american company during the Grande Depression of the inter-war period. New York becomes populated more and more, the summer is hot, the winter is cold, employment misses and the crime increases. These broad outlines are not a rewriting of the history of the United States, but the topics lit by work of Weegee. Being caught affection for disinherited and the tramps arranging refuges of misery and alive in slums, Weegee likes to say that it does not have any inhibition, not more than its apparatus.

Weegee grows only in the instantaneous one and with the recording of the still hot dramatic scenes of the daily life. It photographs as well the victims, the culprits, the police officers, the witnesses and passers by, thus recreating a fresco around daily scenes enamelling the smoothed character of the American dream. This reading of the work of Weegee is not with counter-current of photographic work of the time. On the contrary, it takes part of this birth of a photojournalism which is given for objective to be with more close to reality and implements all to fulfill its mission. Whereas other photographers are subsidized by national plans aiming at visually counting the living conditions of American (désertifiées campaigns, hard-working of factories, etc), Weegee privileges an autonomy which lets to him choose its photographic subjects receiving a strong media echo near the draftings of the newspapers.

During its career, Weegee became an ambiguous character, with the various personalities and often criticized by some as being a Peeping Tom who photographs the misfortune of his fellow-citizens. For proof of this ambiguity, some regards it as one of the precursors of the photographs with feeling of the tabloïds, whereas it receives, in parallel, the artistic recognition of its work by official institutions (Museum off Modern Art of New York in 1943). Ambiguity also holds with the place that gives Weegee to death, its neighborhoods, conditions and effects, as one of the first exposures of its photographs attests it, organized by the local League Photograph in 1941, Murder is my Business .

Weegee died on December 26th 1968 following complications related to a Tumeur with the Cerveau.

Additional activities

Weegee was also related to the film turning in 16 Misters Of 1946 to 1960, he works with Hollywood as actor and adviser technical on police films. He also appears with the credits of film of Stanley Kubrick, Doctor Folamour , where the accent used by Peter Sellers to incarnate the main character would be directly inspired by the accent of Weegee. In the film Public The Eye , left on the screens in 1992, Joe Pesci incarnates a photographer working while being connected on the radio of the police force. This character is directly inspired by the life of Weegee.

In the years 1960, Weegee travels through Europe and tries out various formats (panoramic, distortions) and kinds (photographs of naked) photographic, in particular for the Daily Mirror . Andy Warhol known as to be influenced by the work of Weegee, but it refers mainly to its work during the Années 1930.

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