"The streets are my stage, and the people are the actors in my eternal drama. I have seen the best and worst of humanity through my lens." Weegee with a kaleidoscope stuck on the front of his Hasselblad 500C There is a photo showin caleidoscope camera Attachement at Piccadilly Circus, London. Another one shows Weegee witha kaleidoscope on his lens at thethe World's Fair in New York. Weegee most often used a 4x5 Speed Graphic press camera. By affixing a kaleidoscope to the camera lens, he manipulated the reflections to distort his subjects into playful yet moderately sinister compositions called distortions. "A street photographer with a penchant for murders and misfits, somewhere between burlesque and film noir: Weegee, arguably the most popular photographer of the 1940s and 50s, has become a legend" Born on June 12, 1899 in Zolochiv, Ukraine (then Austria), Usher Fellig immigrated with his family to the United States aged 11, where his name was changed to Arthur. In 1935, while still in his teens, he started working as a freelance news photographer, and became “Weegee”. His decision to create this catchy pseudonym is perhaps indicative of the knack for self-promotion he was to become renowned for (a knack further evidenced as he later proclaimed himself ‘Weegee the Famous’). Soon after this transformation – perhaps his most famous fait de gloire – he installed a police radio in his car, which allowed him to arrive on the scenes of crimes and accidents before other photographers, and sometimes even before the authorities themselves, as he proudly claimed. This enabled him to take staggering photographs of murders, deadly fires, car accidents, and grisly mob hits. -