Thursday 2 August 2012

Favourite Things - Beginning with Photographers

http://www.amber-online.com/exhibitions/weegee-collection

Weegee (real name Arthur Fellig) is one of my favourite photographers and not just because his photos are black and white - though that helps enormously as my mantra is 'everything looks better in black and white' , but because they provoke a reaction in me as the viewer - which can be envy as in 'wow I wish I had that kind of skill with a camera to wow I wish I'd been there to wow - I want that lady's dress' or distaste as he is focusing upon something grim or just curiosity as to how he captured that image. Or just good old fashioned nostalgia for a time I wasn't actually around for but would have loved to have been - namely the 40's and the 50's - though he carried on working up til his death in 1968.

His pictures range from beautiful intimate moments captured on film to grim crime scenes to slighty risque manipulations and duplications of body parts - mostly womens legs and quirky self portraits.

He was slightly obsessed with the grim underbelly of society and it's rumoured he tuned his radio to police channels so he could be first on the scene of any incidents. He was self taught and had a makeshift darkroom in the boot of his car and had a good sense of show business about himself.

I really love him - and I hope you enjoy looking at his work too :-)

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