Weegee
“Oh, you like to take pictures of dead things, too?” Aunt Heather asked me. She had noticed the photo of dead birds being used as the background on my iPhone.
“I do,” I replied. I’m like the Weegee of dead bird photos, I thought.
Weegee (derived from the phonetic spelling of Ouija) was the pseudonym of Arthur Fellig. His family moved to New York City from Poland in 1909, when he was just 10-years old.
Fellig left school at age fourteen to help support his family. His first job was as an assistant to a commercial photographer. He also obtained extra money by taking street portraits. In 1918, Fellig was employed as a darkroom technician in Lower Manhattan.
Then, in 1935, Fellig left his job and attempted to make a living as a freelance photographer. By tuning his radio to the police frequency and monitoring their calls, he often beat authorities to the scene of a crime. This resulted in grotesque images of murder victims, car wrecks, and the public’s reaction to such tragedies. He even had a complete darkroom in the trunk of his car.
Fellig sold his pictures to newspapers, and in 1938 he became the only New York reporter with a permit to have a portable police-band shortwave radio. Since then, his photographs have appeared in multiple exhibits at the Museum of Modern Art. Books of his work have also published.
In unrelated news, I have a new mole. “Whoa, you should really get that looked at,” Ryan told me.
The other night I dreamt that it grew to cover the entire left side of my face. It was quite hideous.
Photograph of a murder victim taken by Weegee (above)
One of my photographs of a dead bird (below)
