EXTRA! See all about it

Weegee's most famous news photo with the original (left) including the three people who are always trimmed in printed editions.

The expanding collection of Weegee books.

A new book about Weegee is always welcome and this Hirmer edition really delivers a super helping of New York's greatest news photographer. The 361 photos cover what was happening in the city from 1936 to 1945 as far as the tabloids were concerned. Not just the crime, murders, suicides, fires, car crashes, floods and heat waves but several of the thirteen chapters cover less familiar Weegee subjects: Extra! Fine looks at high society arriving and departing from events; Extra! Help shows the police and emergency services giving a helping hand during some citizen's personal crisis; Extra! Friends has twelve shots of cats, dogs and birds (not really newsworthy as such but the tabloids loved to combine human interest and pets).

The book's inside cover blurb suggests that most of the photos are published here for the first time, I don't think this strictly true as I've seen many of them in other Weegee books published over the last few years. His best work was printed in the left-leaning, ad free New York paper PM Daily (one of twelve papers published in the city) where he was a 'special contributing photographer' rather than part of the full-time staff so he could sell his work to other titles if PM didn't use a photo. It's worth remembering that his New York work was taken for reproduction in newspapers where high-speed printing and cheap paper didn't allow for subtle shades of grey, instead he delivered gutsy black and white images mostly taken at night.

His most celebrated picture, 'The critic' (on page 179) was commissioned by PM but not used. It shows two society ladies arriving at the Metropolitan Opera in October 1943 and looking at the camera with a disdainful, ordinary woman 'critic' looking at them. Weegee's shot also included three people on the left-hand side of the photo which are always cropped out of any printed version. He set the shot up with friends from his favourite Bowery bar, Sammy's, got them slightly drunk and took them to the Opera for this planned photo.

The book's landscape shape gives a good showing to the photos and someone had the bright idea of reproducing the caption strips pasted on the back of all the photos before they were hand delivered to the newspapers but, as other reviewers have noticed, these strips have unfortunately all been reduced from their original size to something much smaller making most of them rather unreadable. A real shame because to read what the caption writers said in newspaper style of the time gives the photos an extra feel of realism.

Despite the annoying caption problem I thought this was a excellent book about Weegee and his most creative years.