Weegee

I have recently gotten into Weegee.  I have also always enjoyed gazing (Weegee-like) at human suffering. Studying?  The real phrase I want to use is "watching at," because it suggests a certain detachment and dehumanization of the subject, but I don't think that is proper English.

There has always been something very compelling to me, seeing people laid naked, bare for all the world to see them at their most piteous moments.  I like the violent Weegee photographs the best, or the ones that imply violence or display the results of violence.  I also like the apathy of some of the onlookers.  There is something so self-congratulatory about the faces of some of these bystanders -- as if it was a credit to their skill, determination, and faithful church-going that they had avoided a similar fate.

Don't you love the word akimbo?  I know that the word akimbo must have derived to describe the curious angle of the limbs of a dead corpse (among other things), but there is something of certainty about the word that suggests the contrary -- that dead corpses exist to give purpose to the word.

Weegee himself is not a sociopath, of course.  He's quoted in a recent Slate article as saying: "I’m very sensitive and artistic and hate the sight of blood, but I’m spellbound by the mystery of murder."  Too bad.

For collections, see here, here, here, and here, among others.