Arthur Fellig, better known as Weegee, was an American photographer and photojournalist known for his gritty, often confrontational images of urban life in New York City. He was born on June 12, 1899, in Zloczew, Poland, and immigrated to the United States with his family at the age of 10.

Weegee’s father, Bernard Fellig, immigrated to the United States in 1906 and was followed four years laterrnby his wife and four children, including Usher, the second-born. At Ellis Island, Usher became Arthur. 

He was a self-taught photographer. Despite his lack of formal education, Weegee quickly gained a reputation for his technical skill and his ability to capture the drama and intensity of urban life.Weegee's photography style evolved through years of experimentation and practice. He was known for his unconventional approach to photography,which included using a variety of lenses and filters to create unusual effects. He was known for his use of flash photography, which allowed him to capture sharp, detailed images in low light conditions.

In 1923 he took a job in the darkroom of Acme Newspictures, where he was able occasionally to photograph at night. In addition to his work for Acme, he held a series of low-paying jobs until 1935, when he became a freelance photographer for a number of New York newspapers.He quickly gained a reputation for his ability to capture the gritty reality of life on the streets, particularly in the city's Lower East Side. Weegee's images were sensational, capturing crime scenes, accidents, and other dramatic events in a way raw and unflinching.
Weegee's photographs were characterized by their rawness and intense contrast.He was known for his ability to capture the reality of urban life, particularly in the poorer neighborhoods of New York City, where crime and poverty were rampant.

Weegee's work was groundbreaking in its approach and had a significant impact on the field of photojournalism. His images were published in newspapers and magazines, and his books (we will refer to them below) remain influential today.In addition to his photography work, Weegee also experimented with film, creating a number of short films.He also worked as a actor, consultant and technical advisor on several Hollywood films (We will also refer to his participation in the seventh art below).

His characteristic and valuable trait was that he would appear at crime and accident scenes before the police or other photographers arrived. Legend has it that he did this because he had a police radio installed in his car (in the trunk it also had a typewriter etc.), which allowed him to arrive at crime scenes before the police. 

In addition to his photography work, Weegee was also known for his colorful personality and eccentric behavior. He was often seen wearing a fedora (wide-brimmed felt hat)  and smoking a cigar. He was also known for his love of nightlife and his frequent visits to New York City's jazz clubs and burlesque shows.He was also a notorious self-promoter, often exaggerating or inventing stories about his past to gain publicity.

Despite his reputation for being a bit of a showman, Weegee was respected and admired by many of his peers in the photography world. He was known for his technical skill, his ability to capture the drama and grit of urban life, and his pioneering approach to photojournalism.

Weegee married Margaret Atwood in 1947 but they divorced the same year.

(the covers of the first editions in the last 5 photos)

"Murder is my business" : held in 1941 at the Photo League in New York, this was Weegee's first solo exhibition. It featured photos of New York City, including crime scenes, accidents and other dramatic events.

The general acceptance of his photographic style led to the acquisition of his works by the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MOMA) and their inclusion in two group exhibitions there, in 1943 and 1945.

In 1980, Weegee's companion Wilma Wilcox, along with Sidney Kaplan, Aaron Rose and Larry Silver, formed The Weegee Portfolio Incorporated to create an exclusive collection of photographic prints made from Weegee's original negatives. As a bequest, Wilma Wilcox donated the entire Weegee archive – 16,000 photographs and 7,000 negatives – to the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York. This 1993 gift and transfer of copyright became the source for several exhibitions and books including Weegee's World, edited by Miles Barth (1997), and Unknown Weegee, edited by Cynthia Young (2006). The first and largest exhibition was the Weegee's World: Life, Death and the Human Drama, mounted in 1997. It was followed in 2002 by Weegee's Trick Photography, a show of distorted (or otherwise caricatured) images, and four years later by Unknown Weegee, a survey that emphasized his less violent, post-tabloid photographs.

In 2009, the Kunsthalle Vienna held an exhibition called Elevator to the Gallows. The exhibition combined modern installations by Banks Violette with Weegee's nocturnal photography.
In 2012 ICP opened another Weegee exhibition titled, Murder Is My Business. Also in 2012, anrnexhibition called Weegee: The Naked City, opened at Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow. Weegee's autobiography, originally published in 1961 as Weegee by Weegee and long out of print, was retitled as Weegee: The Autobiography and republished in 2013.
From April 2013 through July 2014, the Flatz Museum in Dornbirn, Austria presented Weegee: "How to photograph a corpse", based on relevant photographs from Weegee's portfolio, including many vintage prints. Original newspapers and magazines, dating back to the time where the photos were taken, accompanied the photographs.

1947: First prize in the News Picture category of the National Press Photographers Association's annual contest for his photograph "The Critic."

1957: Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to document life in the Jewish community of New York City.

1960: Awarded the Gold Medal for Photography from the National Arts Club.

-"F8 and be there": This was Weegee's philosophy when it came to taking photographs. He believed that being 

  present in the moment was more important than technical perfection, and that a photographer should always be 

  ready to capture the action.

-"I'd rather be lucky than good": Weegee attributed much of his success to being in the right place at the right          time. He believed that luck played a big role in photography, and that even the most talented photographer could 

  miss the shot if they weren't lucky.

-"The best news pictures come from disasters": Weegee was known for his gritty, often disturbing photographs of 

   crime scenes, accidents, and other tragedies. He believed that these types of images were the most powerful and 

   memorable, and that they had the ability to change people's perceptions of the world.

-"Photography is not an art. It is a science. It is a way of recording reality." Weegee believed that photography was 

   a tool for documenting the world around us, rather than a means of artistic expression. He valued technical 

   precision above all else.

1) "Weegee's New York" (1948): This 21-minute documentary short film, directed by himself, presents himself and his photographs of New York - as he saw it - in the 1940s. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6CPQJxTyq8).

2) "Naked City" (1948): Although not specifically about Weegee, this classic film noir is based on the photographs in his book and features a character based on him. The film is set in New York and follows a detective as he investigates a series of crimes. Directed by Jules Dassin.

3) "Every girl should be married" (1948): appears as an actor and plays a street photographer (uncredited). Directed by Don Hartman and starring Gary Grant & Betsy Drake.

4) "Set-Up" (1949) : appears as an actor playing the round timer in a boxing match (uncredited). Directed by Robert Wise and starring Robert Ryan & Audrey Totter.

5) "The yellow cab man" (1950): appears as an actor playing a taxi driver (uncredited). Directed by Jack Donahue and starring Red Skelton & Gloria DeHaven.

6) "The 'Imp' probable Me. Wee Gee" (1966): stars as himself (nicknamed Mr. Wee Gee) in this pseudo-documentary, which begins when he falls in love with a mannequin and watches her in London. He then meets a beautiful ghost in a haunted house and eventually ends up in Paris, where he meets other beautiful women who chase him to the Eiffel Tower. Directed by Sherman Price.

7) "Weegee: The Famous" (1984): TV-movie/documentary by Andrew Piddington, explores his life and work through archival material.

8) "The Real Weegee" (1993): This documentary by Sherman Price explores the life and work of Weegee and his impact on the world of photography. Includes interviews with his friends and colleagues, as well as photography experts. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov-1WNOh-Gc&t=133s).

It would be remiss not to mention (very briefly) Weegee's relationship with Filn-Noir.

It is widely known that Weegee had a significant influence on the film noir genre. Film noir is a style of filmmaking that emerged in the 1940s and 50s, characterized by its dark, moody visual style and themes of crime, corruption, and moral ambiguity. Weegee's photographs of crime scenes and the dark underbelly of New York in the 1940s and 1950s captured a sense of gritty realism and stark contrast that would become hallmarks of film noir, and many filmmakers consulted his work for inspiration when they were creating their own films and their own explorations of crime and corruption.

Overall, Weegee's influence on the film noir genre is a testament to the enduring power of his photography and the impact it continues to have on popular culture.

SMALL DETAILS' 

-Peter Sellers mimicked Weegee’s voice and gave it a German accent when playing the title role in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 Academy Award nominated comedy "Dr. Strangelove", where Weegee was on set, taking pictures and consulting on special effects. (uncredited).

-According to director Dario Argento, the photographer played by Harvey Keitel in his segment in the film "Two Evil Eyes" (1990) was inspired by Weegee.

-The film "The Public Eye" (1992) directed by Howard Franklin, said to be loosely based on Weegee.

-A piece of the photo (sixth from the end) of the 1940 "Crowd at Coney Island" was used as the cover for George Michael's 1990 album "Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1".

-The 1999 The X-Files episode "Tithonus" pertains to an "Alfred Fellig", who is investigated for photographing crime scenes before emergency services arrive.

-The movie "Nightcrawler" (2014) directed by Dan Gilroy and starring Jake Gyllenhaal & Rene Russo was also inspired by Weegee.

-Maguire's (Jude Law) crime scene photograph in the movie "Road to Perdition" (2002) directed by Sam Mendes with Paul Newman & Tom Hanks & Daniel Craig, is based on Weegee.-