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The RangefinderApril (1985): 11.WEEGEE
American
Though a dedicated student, Usher H. Fellig (Wee-
gee) left school at the age of 14 in order to help
support his family. After numerous odd jobs includ-
ing tintype operator, passport photographer, and
street photographer—photographing children in
the park on a rented pony named Hypo—he even-
tually found his way into the darkrooms of theNew
York Timesin 1921. In 1924, he joined ACME
News Pictures (which became UPI Photos) and
after several years as a darkroom technician, he
began filling in on photographic assignments when
other staff photographers were unavailable. It was
during his time with ACME that he left home in
order to free himself of his family’s orthodox ways
and a great deal of the time he was reduced to living
in missions, flophouses, public parks, and even
Pennsylvania Railroad Station. In 1935 he left
ACME, deciding to freelance in an effort to become
a news photographer in his own right. Over the
course of the next 12 years Weegee would shoot
some of the most memorable images ever taken of
Manhattan and in doing so, ensured that his name
would be forever synonymous with the seedier side
of New York City.
Weegee instinctively understood the lives of the
impoverished, and he photographed them with an
insider’s perspective and a great deal of compassion.
Perhaps more importantly he was trusted by his
‘‘subjects’’ and with his trademark 45 Speed
Graphic he managed to capture in detail both the
ordinary and the extraordinary in a city he clearly
loved and understood. He soon developed a stan-
dard set up when shooting which gave his images
maximum tonality and magnified sharpness—shut-
ting down the lens aperture to f/16, setting the speed
of exposure to^1 = 200 of a second and placing himself at
a distance of 10 feet from his subject. Being an
‘‘insider’’ the good, the bad, and in particular the
ugly were captured with remarkable sensitivity and
his gritty shots of New York life are in stark contrast
to many of his contemporaries whose style would
tend to romanticize the hard times Weegee’s people
endured. While sympathizing with the lower classes,
his contempt for the affluent upper classes was
obvious and is captured perfectly in probably his
most famous imageThe Critictaken in 1943 that
shows two fur-draped, tiara-ed matrons playing to
Weegee’s camera while a scruffy, disturbed-looking
woman stands in profile on the side.
It is a matter of conjecture as to how and when
Arthur H. Fellig became known as Weegee, though it
is generally accepted as being around 1938; some say
after the Ouija board due to his uncanny, almost
clairvoyant ability to be in the right place at the
right time. Others claim it came from his job as a
‘‘Squeegie Boy’’ while working at theNew York
Times. However, it would not be surprising to learn
that it was Fellig alone who ‘‘dubbed’’ himself Wee-
gee simply as an act of self-promotion. In another
typical act of self-publicity, around 1940 he began
stamping many of his prints ‘‘Weegee the Famous.’’
In 1941 his first exhibition, ‘‘Weegee: Murder Is My
Business,’’ opened at The Photo League, New York
and it was at this time that he first started to experi-
ment with moving film with a hand held 16 mm
movie camera. In 1943, five photographs were
acquired by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
and included in theirAction Photographyexhibition.
Very much an innovator, even in his early days,
Weegee was an early proponent of the use of infra-
red photography and captured scenes never before
photographed using this type of technique. ImagesWEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY