You’re headed to NYC. Allow me to introduce you to the one, the only, “murder is my business,” Weegee.

Between 1935- and 1946 he was one of the most relentless, inventive, and daring figures in American photography. He photographed graphic, dramatic, lurid, and often grotesque scenes of nyc crimes and news events. He kind of invented tabloid journalism. He freelanced, and then worked on his own and soon found himself monitoring police activity so he could get to a scene to photograph it before anyone else. He pushed the boundaries of photography in a way that even war photographers before him did not. He famously remarked once at a crime scene that he gets the shot first, then calls the cops. He was also one of the first photographers to be thoughtful about how text interacts with an image (like when one of his photos was featured in a magazine) and he helped usher in later mixed media artists in the 60’s and 70s. He also took pictures of himself, and of other photographers on the scene (yeah, I do that as well…because of him). while bresson felt there was a decisive moment he could wait for, weegee sought that moment out, aggressively, and passionately. The resulting images, I think, are some of the most innovative and arresting street photographs in history.