WeeGee
WeeGee was once the most well known photographer of New York city crime scenes. His pictures documented the violent crimes and tragedies that occurred in his beloved city. After seeing his pictures in the SFU art gallery and hearing his story I am most interested in the many roles he played in New York. He was a crime scene photographer with an incredible nack for showing up at scene only minutes after the crime had been reported (an ability later revealed to be thanks to a police radio) and able to capture moments that hold a realness to them that seems absent in many crime scene photographs.
Images such as the above portrayed small but very active moments within New York. After seeing his work, I can't help but think that he played more than one role, he was not just a photographer. He captured moments of life, made the city seem more human and less concrete and steel. He was exceptional at catching moments of emotion at the scene of crimes because he wouldn't just capture the major event but the very reaction it caused in those it touched.
He was also used by the mob as an indirect messenger. I found it amusing that the mob would actually specify the dates he should remain in New York on weekends in order to document who died where and how. I think he embraced the city and by doing so it embraced him in return. He was given access to high class events with New York aristocrats and then snapped pictures of sleeping children on a fire escape.
It's hard at first to see how they could be connected but they were, it was all different aspects of the same city. From a qualitative perspective it's easy to see how a city can mean so much to so many at the same time but to everyone it means something just a little bit different. The visuals captured by WeeGee are a lesson in seeing the world from different perspectives and I believe it is a lesson that anyone learning how to interpret humanity needs to learn.
Images such as the above portrayed small but very active moments within New York. After seeing his work, I can't help but think that he played more than one role, he was not just a photographer. He captured moments of life, made the city seem more human and less concrete and steel. He was exceptional at catching moments of emotion at the scene of crimes because he wouldn't just capture the major event but the very reaction it caused in those it touched.
He was also used by the mob as an indirect messenger. I found it amusing that the mob would actually specify the dates he should remain in New York on weekends in order to document who died where and how. I think he embraced the city and by doing so it embraced him in return. He was given access to high class events with New York aristocrats and then snapped pictures of sleeping children on a fire escape.
It's hard at first to see how they could be connected but they were, it was all different aspects of the same city. From a qualitative perspective it's easy to see how a city can mean so much to so many at the same time but to everyone it means something just a little bit different. The visuals captured by WeeGee are a lesson in seeing the world from different perspectives and I believe it is a lesson that anyone learning how to interpret humanity needs to learn.