Help! Arthur Felling/Weegee

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Hey guys,
once again I return to the wonderfully knowledgeable members of RFF for help.
I'm doing a small project on Arthur Fellig (The Great Weegee) and I wondered if you guys new any particularily good sources? Or do you know any small bits of trivia that people often miss out on?
I've found a fair few sites out there, but most of them give the same basic information; born, died, worked etc. yet I fancy a bit more.

Thanks for anything you come up with,
Tom
 
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You'll find more online, if you spell his name correctly--Fellig, not Felling.

I recommend the edition of _Naked City_ published by DaCapo press. The reproductions probably only slightly better than newsprint, but it has a few additional essays that I don't think are included in the other edition currently in print.
 
This will definitely come under the label 'Trivia'. I was watching a program about Peter Sellers the other night, and he was telling the story of how he developed the accent for Dr Strangeglove, apparently Weegee was hanging around the set, and Sellers used his impersonation of Weegee with an overlay of German. So there you go, file this one under pub bore.
 
I might recommend two books, which most any libe or bookstore will have. Weegee's World and Weegee's People are two classics, and two I remember from when I was in my teens and first getting into photography.

I also know that both David G. (above) and I have done some experiments in photographing in the style of Weegee. Some of mine are on line here:

http://omababe.blogspot.com/2007/01/people-watching-ala-weegee.html

David had a collection of halloween festvity photos on line, but I'm not sure where they are. He used equipment that was more close to what Weegee used, I cheated and used 35mm.
 
Nice Weegee-flash look, DMR.

Mine are at--

http://www.echonyc.com/~goldfarb/photo/halloween/index.htm

ghalloween.jpg
 
Thanks for all of the input guys!
David, you are correct about the spelling, I just made a booboo on the title and then carried it on through my post. All my searches were correctly spelled; go figure?
Great shots David and dmr. The thing about the Weegee style is that it is not flattering, but brutally clear. Fantatic stuff.
bobbyrab, that is a great piece of information. I must find a way to include that in my work.
Thank you all for your input!
 
Help! Arthur Felling/Weegee

From memory, when I used to live in Greenwich Village, in lower Manhattan in the early 1950's, I would occasionally see Weegee in a black, two-door coupe, with a rumble-seat, I believe, most likely a Ford or a Chevrolet...

He had a radio in the car with Police bands and showed up at crime scenes as quickly as the Police or, in many case, before them because he knew the streets...

I saw him a few times with a 4x5 Speed Graphic but I never saw him take a picture...It was usually when he was coming back to his car...He generally wore a rumpled dark suit, chomped on a short, unlit cigar and was usually intent on what he was doing and not paying too much attention to onlookers...

From what I remember, once he had his pictures he would rush with them to New York tabloid papers, The Daily News and/or the no-longer-in-business Daily Mirror to sell his pictures as a free-lance photographer...The kind of picture he specialized in -- blood and gore -- typically would run on Page One . I don't know if he developed them first but I doubt it because speed was very important and newspapers could develop film very fast even then...[The Internet said he developed them in his car's darkroom].

One of his very famous photographs -- from memory -- was of an elderly woman in evening dress at the Opera, with a dishevelled-looking woman looking on...[The Internet says the picture was staged.]

I could be mistaken but I also seem to recall a photo of an elderly, well-dressed woman with her leg raised in a weird position...
 

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David Goldfarb said:
Nice Weegee-flash look, DMR.
Click to expand...

Thanks 🙂 {blush} 🙂

Those were actually done with a Vivitar 2600 wide open on the GIII.

Mine are at--

http://www.echonyc.com/~goldfarb/photo/halloween/index.htm
Click to expand...

Oh yes! Those are the ones I remember, and that's really what inspired me to try mine.

I did some more, on Fremont St. in Las Vegas, but this time with a Sunpak 120, which has to be registered as a deadly weapon in six states. I actually mounted it on the shoe of the GIII, and it was about twice the size of the camera!

I plan to do a blog entry with those too. 🙂
 
Sjixxxy said:
Apparently he was popular (or broke) enough to do some ads for Burke & James. I have a lousy copy of the Burke & James 4x5 Press's manual on this page of my website. -> http://www.kpraslowicz.com/hardware/burke-james-4x5-press/ There are two pages of endorsments by Weegee in there.
Click to expand...

Hmmmm ... I seem to recall from a conversation a while back, either here or maybe on APUG, that Weegee did a similar endorsement for a Busch Pressman.

Everybody does seem to agree, however, that his usual weapon of choice was the Speed Graphic.
 
dmr said:
I did some more, on Fremont St. in Las Vegas, but this time with a Sunpak 120, which has to be registered as a deadly weapon in six states. I actually mounted it on the shoe of the GIII, and it was about twice the size of the camera!

I plan to do a blog entry with those too. 🙂
Click to expand...

Take a look at that Winogrand video that's been floating around. When he's shooting at a parade at night, he's got a big Norman 200B battery pack over his shoulder (it must be two or three times the size of the camera) and a Norman LH2 head with a plain 5" reflector mounted on a bracket on his Leica. This is essentially the same setup I use with my Technika, but these days I use a 200C battery pack, which is more compact than the 200B, but has the same output and I think more flashes per charge.
 
Rumor has it that he tried to share a bubblebath with 1950`s NYC Camera Club Photo Goddess Bettie Page, as he was shooting Bettie in the bath he decided to try to "bond" more with the model - Bettie is said to have gone out of the bathroom yelling at him, but she got over it and also put him in his place only to finish the photoshoot in some of her typical lingerie style........funny story if it`s true 😀

Tom
 
I have a question. I keep seeing references to Acme news popping up. Did that company exist? I can't find anything cocnrete anywhere, just more references.
Any thoughts?
 
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