arthur fellig, best known as weegee, was known for capturing the raw, crude emotion of people on the streets. and it was just that... people... from different backgrounds, including the poor, the extremely rich, their contrast, the mobs, the living, the dead, the happy and the sad ones.
one of his specialties were pictures of the recently killed, most commonly by the big city mafia. he used to have a police radio in his car, and as soon as he heard some news about a newly found body, he would rush to the scene of the crime, arriving a few minutes after the police, or in some cases, before them. this "supernatural" power of him made people think he had some kind of sixth sense, and that's how he gained his nickname, weegee, a rewritten version of the word "ouija".
in murder in hell's kitchen we can see death as powerful as it can be. is it a documentary photograph of a gruesome deal gone wrong? is it payback in the flesh? was weegee one of the first paparazzis, robbing privacy from this recently killed human being? is it just art? but maybe we should just look at the picture's name... maybe weegee just wanted to show us murder in the big city. maybe that's as real as it can get.
9 comments:
How cute...not!
But i did like the whole getting there before the police thing, i don't know if that is raw and cruel or just art.
Maybe we need a Weegee here in Caracas.
(K)
edilma - some people call me the weegee of the heart, i'll be there before you know it. i'm also not very welcome in most cases :P
Are you drinking zombies so early?...ohh i forgot, heart zombie, right?
...shhhhhh!
why do matters of the heart have to be connected with alcohol, edilma? ;)
punch-drunk love?
:o
I remember this photograph by Arthur Fellig.
In another life, I was a news reporter and photographer. The most gruesome picture I ever took was of some dead rats to illustrate rat infestation in a neighborhood.
But mostly I took pictures of little kids playing or teenagers in their high school plays or cows at the county fair or local politicians.
The stuff of life in the midwestern United States.
minnie - how nice :o do you have the rats pic? say you do ;)
i've always wanted to be a photographer, but i don't have the patience :(
happy tuesday, minnie
Nilz, I still might have that rat picture in my old files because it caused a bit of sensation in the town where I was living.
Will look someday....hmmmmm which box might that be?
oh minnie, please, do search, do share ;)
Oh my gosh, you guys are really in your own worlds over here. What kind of place did I take a wrong turn into? Please, don't mind me, you never saw me, go back to eating the last lost browser who stopped by this page and tell your husband/brother I'm sorry to have bothered you!
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