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Weegee Weegee was born Usher Fellig in Zloczew, Austria in 1899. His hometown is now in Poland. His name was changed to Arthur at Ellis Island when he came with his family to live in New York's Lower East Side in 1910. He quit school at age 14 to help support his family, working at odd jobs and as an itinerant street photographer and assistant to a commercial photographer. Fellig had been a passport photographer for three years …

…or various negatives. Weegee later added a system by which he would affix a kaleidoscope to the end of his camera lens, or use it to replace the camera lens all together. This in effect let refracted the designs and multiplied what the camera would have recorded as a single image. From this period in the 1950s until his death, Weegee concentrated on what he alternately called his "distortions," "caricatures," or most often, his "art."