7. Arthur Fellig/Weegee: The crime scene photographer

In the 1930’s and 40’s, a Ukrainian photographer by the name of Arthur Fellig made a living photographing crime scenes for New York City area newspapers. He gained his nickname “Weegee”from the phonetic version of the ouija board because of his seemingly clairvoyant ability to arrive at a crime scene just minutes after it occurred. Weegee was the only private citizen that was issued a permit for a portable police-band shortwave radio to aid him in seeking out scenes to photograph. He covered more than 5,000 murders as a freelance photographer in New York from 1935 to 1945.

Weegee stated “In my particular case I didn’t wait ’til somebody gave me a job or something, I went and created a job for myself—freelance photographer. And what I did, anybody else can do. What I did simply was this: I went down to Manhattan Police Headquarters and for two years I worked without a police card or any kind of credentials. When a story came over a police teletype, I would go to it. The idea was I sold the pictures to the newspapers. And naturally, I picked a story that meant something.” Weegee and his camera, with its flash, seem to have a fateful meeting with his human subjects; pictures seem perfectly arranged, and what we focus on is their human content.

I really like Weegee’s working idea, which was aiming to capture the meaningful moment (mostly death), and keep it forever in the image. I think his purpose was basically significant. He also have good photography skills for his photos as well. People tried hard to take unique, special photos nowadays, but in other hand their intention made their work artificial. Weegee’s photo was instead lively and realistic, they bring out the real message with professional photography skills.

What Weegee said actually gave me motivation on using photography as an art media. I’m not confidence with my photography skills, but Weegee said “what he did, anybody can do so”. It kind of encouraged me to continue taking photos. Also, Weegee didn’t take photos for art, but the context within his images, were arts, to some extent.