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Christopher Bonanos – Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous

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November 19, 2018 – Our time machine hauls out the big, bulky Speed Graphic camera and watches the ultimate watcher of watchers in 1930s, ’40s and ’50s New York City: Arthur Fellig. Helping haul the tripod around to various crime scenes and disasters is Christopher Bonanos who brings us Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous. Even if you don’t know the name, you’ve seen his gritty images from the 1930s through ’50s.

It’s an incredible body of work produced by a photographer who hammed up claims of an uncanny ability to show up at a crime scene just as the cops did — a human Ouija board.

Christopher Bonanos is city editor at New York magazine where he covers arts and culture and urban affairs. His previous book is Instant: The Story of Polaroid. Follow him on Twitter @HeyBonanos and @PolaroidLand on Instagram.