You would think he had come out of a film noir from the 1950s. Cigar in mouth, three-piece suit and Speed Graphic camera in hand, Weegee himself drew his legend as a picturesque reporter.
“Murder Inc Photographer.”
as the FBI nicknamed him, this figure of photojournalism stamped his photos intended for the press with a peremptory
“Weegee the famous”
.
A bit arrogant but damn effective.
We see it once again on the walls of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, in Paris, lair of the decisive moment dear to the eponymous photographer.
Weegee's news photos are unstoppable.
Everything is there: the victim, the onlookers, the police, the sometimes presumed murderer, the humidity on the asphalt, the lights of the street lamps and always this sticky and shady atmosphere of the slums of New York, captured in their rawness between 1935 and 1945.
Weegee, aka Arthur Fellig, had a method of his own.
He lived at night in his car, the trunk of which was transformed into a photo lab...
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