He went by Weegee — as in ouija — because in the 1930s and '40s, the prescient photographer and his camera were often the first to show up at crime scenes.

Weegee’s photographic career is a study in contrasts. His early work, created between 1935 and 1945, is marked by sensational images of gangsters, murder scenes, fires and tragic accidents.

This was the 1940s, and Weegee was famous. People were turned on by his voyeuristic, first-to-the-scene crime photographs, each one like a dirty martini, flooding the brain with its chilling mix ...

Weegee also frequently shot cross-dressing men picked up by the police. “At the time, these were staples of the tabloids, and I’m sure they were not received warmly,” says Bonanos.

Weegee sold his dramatic shots to any willing buyer, among them the editors of the New York Post, and in the process become one of the first freelance photojournalists.

For Weegee, the reason his photos were so good is that he knew New York City like the back of his hand, every nook, cranny and crevice. That was his superpower—to predict where interesting ...

In 1940, Manhattan’s Photo League Headquarters hosted a Weegee exhibition. For six years beginning in 1940, Weegee was contracted by a mostly progressive, image-centric tabloid called PM.

Weegee: Murder Is My Business is the fifth Weegee exhibit to be staged at ICP, following Weegee the Famous (1977, curated by Wilcox), Weegee’s World: Life, Death and the Human Drama (1998 ...

Weegee made films as well, such as this one on Coney Island, although they were not commercially successful Throughout his career, Weegee never lost his sense of wonder at New York.