Weegee the now famous

My expanding library of Weegee, stacked by year of publication

Weegee, a man of two halves, as revealed in these pages. Ukrainian-born, in 1899, Usher Felig came to America when he was eleven and worked in various jobs until 1935, when he started as a freelance street photographer and in 1937 created his unique name. His speciality was taking crime, fire, accident and street-scene photos for New York's tabloids, easily achieved as he listened to police radio messages and arrived on the scene before any other snappers.

The book has an excellent selection of his New York photos, though they have all appeared in other books about him, especially in his 1945 book 'Naked City.' The net is awash with various (poor) editions issued over the years. Italian publisher Damiani issued a first-class facsimile in 2019 (ISBN 978 8862086950).

I was rather disappointed with this book, though it has 130 photos and four worthwhile essays. About half the book is Weegee's tacky photo-facial caricatures of celebrities and politicians. On page 161 there's a reproduction of a spread from an April 1962, Mechanix Illustrated magazine where he explains how to take your own facial distortions. I think Miles Barth's 'Weegee's world' (ISBN 0821226495) with 262 pages of photos and essays, is a good introduction to this interesting photographer.

US

Amazon.com: Weegee: Society of the Spectacle: 9780500029121: Chéroux, Clément, Bonnet, Isabelle, Campany, David, Young, Cynthia: Books

UK

Weegee: Society of the Spectacle : Chéroux, Clément, Young, Cynthia, Bonnet, Isabelle, Campany, David: Amazon.co.uk: Books

Amazing Soviet film posters (5/5)

The Soviet film posters book I'm writing about is the large-size version (ISBN 978-3836589529, 34x26mm with 320 pages) and not the smaller version (ISBN 978-3754405543, 21x15mm with 512 pages). Both sizes have the same cover design, so you need to make sure you get the larger copy, which I think is the better of the two.

The 250 posters are so unlike anything produced in the West during the 20s and 30s. They rely on incredibly strong graphics, especially photomontages, to put their message across to the public. The only common element is the use of faces in lots of different photographic and art styles. 

The posters are presented on black pages throughout the book. Each gets a reasonable-length caption about the film, plus technical details naming the designer, size, date etc. The author writes a worthwhile essay about the designers who created this amazing art. The back pages has brief biogs of them and a three-page index. 

The city of another day of sun (3/5)

A book with five chapters revealing a visual history of LA from 1850 to 1965. It's basically pictures and captions. The longest, with eighty-two pages, is 'Paradise 1945-1965' though I'm not sure why LA from 1965, up to at least 2000, isn't considered. I found it very much a pop look at the city with plenty of non-interesting photos, for example, several of folks sitting at tables in restaurants or clubs, smiling and looking at the camera. This type of photo is relevant to the individuals shown but of little interest to anyone else.

There's a bit of everything included (so long as it's available as a picture) commercial, domestic and motel architecture, suburbs, transport, street scenes, entertainment (lots of this) industry and more. Unfortunately, all this pictorial material is just dropped into each spread with no overall book design to hold it together. LA deserves better than this and it has been done in 572 pages. Check out 'Los Angeles: portrait of a city' (ISBN  978-3836502917).