Photographer Arthur Felig, known as Vegi, captured the gritty side of New York City of the 1940s and was known for his supernatural ability to reach a crime site before police.
But at the same time, along with photographs of murder scenes, fire, and car accidents, Vegi later moved to the West Coast, where he captured day celebrities like Merlin Munro and Jackie Kennedy.
His subsequent work has often been disregarded in photography circles but a new book and exhibition, Weegee: Society of spectacle, The photographer wants to cover two different bodies of work.
The exhibition at the International Center of Photography in New York City investigated the opposite works of Vegi. “There was a kind of esoteric question at the beginning of this project,” perform Curator Clement Chéroux Says Guardian, “It is as if you had a walker evans and a man in the same body. How can the same photographer do this? ,
F/8 more there
Weegee is of course the most famous spot news photographer of the 20th century and is credited with the phrase “F/8 and Be there”, which only describes the technique at the time of being present in the scene and shoots with a small aperture so that the photo is mostly in focus.
Now an immigrant from Ukraine, Veje left school early to take strange jobs; One of them is the help of a photographer. He worked in the darkroom developing photos for others before becoming Freelance News Photographer in the 1930s.
The origin of his name is a mystery – a theory is that he received it endlessly to use a squeeze to take water from photographic prints while working. New York Times Film lab. Another thing is that it is a phonetic drama on the word “Oija”, which is due to its obvious supernatural ability to reach scenes of crime so soon. But in reality, that was Access to a police scanner Will monitor more emergency calls in your car.
Regardless, it was the period when he took many of his most famous news pictures which became art in itself. In 1945, he released his first book Naked city Which will inspire a film by the same name.
In addition to crime scenes, Vegi took pictures of the poor neighborhood, strange people in bars, and gangsters, always with 4 × 5 speed graphic camera at F/16 at 1/200 on F/16, with a set focus distance of flashbul and ten feet. His work will later inspire photographers such as Dianne Arbas.
His work in Hollywood saw him using in the dark, distorted his pictures so that his subjects were like strange monasteries.
“This is very rare in the story of the 20th century photography,” Chéroux tells Guardian,“I do not know about any other photographer who had the same pole – both were interested in front of the camera, and then also interested in dark manipulation”
Weegee: Society of the Spectrakal From 23 January to 5 May, the International Center of New York is seen at the Center of Photography. A book of the same name is with a major exhibition.
