Customer Reviews

Naked City

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Weegee knew what kind of photos the editors of the New York daily tabloids wanted, in-your-face gutsy black and whites to capture the reader's imagination over the breakfast table. He always delivered too. This reprint of his 1945 book captures the energy of the Big Apple and yet there are no shots of skyscrapers. Instead the (mostly) ordinary folk of the city are shown getting on with their lives and deaths.

Many of the photos are taken at night, a Weegee trademark. Inside buildings he used infrared film so he could shoot in near blackness and capture his subjects displaying emotions they would hide, had they known a camera was about. Out on the street he captured the latest human tragedy in stark close-up with a blinding flash of his Speed Graphic camera.

The contents of this book are an amazing selection of photos but I was very disappointed by the reproduction, so only three stars. As far as I can tell, the photos have been scanned from the 1945 book rather than from original prints. The paper is coarse which doesn't help the reproduction either. This looks not much better than a book of photocopies. Far better I think to go for Miles Barth's Weegee's World. Although it does not have every photo from 'Naked City', the 250 included are printed as duotones on glossy paper, I particularly like this book because it shows many photos as original un-cropped prints. For instance, in his famous photo, 'The Critic' the three bystanders to the left of the two socialites are usually cropped out but here you can see how great the original was. This book also has three excellent essays about Weegee and his influence on other photographers in the Forties.

Another choice might be Weegee's New York Photographs, 1935-1960 with 335 photos from 1935 to 1960 and like the Barth book it is large size and beautifully printed (the photos are duotones) on glossy paper and could possibly have all the photos in Naked City.

Poor paper quality makes the photographic reproductions look like bad photocopies. I was very disappointed.

A fine selection of Weegee's unposed, spontaneous vignettes of life in the city, at least, as it was in the 30's and 40's, equivalent of today's TV "fuzz and the wuzz". His accompanying commentary, unghosted and punchy, mirrors the b/w images; snappy, to the point. The paper stock used here is cheap, but then, these photos usually appeared in the morning paper...in a time when there were newspapers.

The photos from the original are some of the greatest ever made. It's criminal to see them reproduced in such a low-quality manner. This book's not worth the cheap paper it's printed on. Very low quality images. Looks like a cheap xerox copy of the original. Save your money and buy an original hardcover copy. Don't waste your money on this cheaply made, over-priced paper-back version.

Beware that if you are looking for a book with info and a decent representation of Weegee's photography, this is not the book for you. I actually thought it was a bootleg photocopied book. The images you can print from your $50 home printer would be 90% better. The text in the book is what gives it one star... buyer beware

It is such a shame that the atrocious print quality ruins what could have been an excellent publication.
Perhaps the publishers merely photocopied the old newspaper prints of Weegee's work, how else could it be so bad.
Being such a fan of his work, I can't under emphasize how incredibly disappointed I was with this!!!!

Avoid buying the Da Capo paperback. The print quality is like a cheap photocopier running out of toner. Even the text is badly printed; and what they did to the photos is a travesty. I remember the original edition of this book, and everything was like a high-quality glossy magazine. E.P. Dutton ought to be furious that they licensed the copyright to these cut-rate clowns.

This is a small-format (non-coffee-table) book containing a representative selection of Weegees typical photos of New York tragedies (mostly) of the 20s, 30s and 40s, together with his own cryptic comments. Not to everyone's taste, but an iconic social document of the place and times.