LETTER FROM NEW YORK

PHOTO ESSAY

Shot in the Dark

A new exhibition focuses on the lesser-known photos of the late, great Weegee

By Lauren Mechling
July 26, 2006

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Circus Audience (c. 1943).

For much of 1940s, Weegee worked with the left-leaning tabloid PM, where he was given entire pages in which to run photo essays. He loved the circus. Sometimes he would go dressed up as a clown or an ice-cream seller to facilitate his interactions with the audience. Detractors say that he mocked his subjects, and this picture could be used as supporting evidence. But a careful study of his body of work will show that his humour dwarfed his tendency to be mean-spirited, and he reserved his scorn for the upper class. “Weegee looks for the human element,” his editor at PM, Ralph Steiner, once said. “He looks for anything incongruous, for little points which may be more interesting than the main event.”