“A telegram from a man’s magazine; they wanted pictures of abnormal fellows who liked to dress in women’s clothes. I would call the editor and tell him that what was abnormal to him was normal to me.
I kept no files. I put my extra prints and negatives into a barrel. If anybody wanted a fire or murder shot, my two daily specials, I’d tell him to come down and search for them. Or, better still, he could wait and, within twenty-four hours, I’d have new ones…
After I’d had a little sleep, I’d make the rounds of the camera stores… I was looking for a young, impressionistic, wild-eyed girl with a candid camera around her neck. That was the dish I was hungry for…”
Weegee by Weegee, p. 65

“WHO GOOFED!
Weegee shoots crazy mixed up cheesecake!
One look at these oddly assembled girls, and there comes an immediate conviction: ‘Somebody goofed.’ Those who know the story though will tell you: ‘Man, you should goof like photographer Weegee goofed.’ Seems that all this crazy-mixed up photography is Weegee’s stock in trade, and a profitable stock it’s proven. For those that dig this bit, Weegee can at a moment’s notice whip up a two-headed girl, a four-legged lady, or a doll with no head at all! Of course those with more orthodox taste may ask: ‘Who wants it?’ But the hipsters would reply: ‘Man, don’t you dig distortion – don’t be square!‘”

“In my room, I would have the mail and telegrams slipped under my door. I had no phone; I’m allergic to them…
There was at least one murder every night. In my ten years at police headquarters I must have covered 5,000…
Looking back on my years of Murder, Inc., I find I used up ten press cameras, five cars, and every night twenty cigars, and twenty cups of coffee. For me crime had paid – in a very lush way. But crime did not pay for the gangster… who wants to end up in the gutter with his brains splattered on the sidewalk.
Anyway, I had got the famous pictures of a violent era, the pictures that all the great papers with all their resourses couldn’t get, and had to buy them from me. And in shooting these pictures, I had also photographed the soul of the city I knew and loved.”
Weegee, Weegee by Weegee, pp. 64-76.

“Our Police Headquarters photographer, Weegee, got his name in all the camera magazines last month when the Photo League put on a show of his news pictures. Yesterday, prompted by gallery-visitor response to the first, the league opened a second edition of the exhibit in its clubroom at 31 E. 21st St. The new show, a complete change of pictures from the first…… Above, in a photo by one of the League members, Weegee puts finishing touches to the display. Typical comments in the visitors’ book: “Great pictures”… “Terrific”… “Could do better with a Brownie”… “Have gone away for the weekend to recuperate.””

“And there is the all-important fact that Weegee, unlike the majority of photographers I have met, is a rich personality. You can’t squeeze blood from a stone; nor can an editor squeeze good pictures out of a stony photographer. Weegee moves in a world of violence, brutality, bloodshed and horror, but the pictures he brings up out of it do not depend on the drama of the event. They are good because Weegee adds a little of himself, and a little of Weegee is really something.”

This is the first in a series of hourly Weegee birthday posts (primarily published photos of W.)…
(A very late night; very quick and easy plan.)
No context, no information, no nothing…

To be continued…

Ad Reinhardt

Ad Reinhardt

(To be continued…)

PM Daily, May 1946