Audio: Getty Curator Anne Lyden explains how Weegee worked, and how he got his name. Includes archival audio of Weegee talking about his process.

Weegee fell in love with photography at an early age after seeing a tintype of himself from a New York street photographer. Inspired, Weegee bought a photographic kit and taught himself. He worked as a darkroom technician at news picture agencies for a number of years before becoming a freelance news photographer. His specialties were depravity and its opposite—high society, which he saw with a cynic's eye. He sometimes used infrared film, devised during World War II for the military, to capture the private moments of complete strangers. Because the film was sensitive chiefly to red light, he used red flashbulbs, which went unnoticed by his subjects. Weegee sold his pictures for reproduction in New York's newspapers, including the Herald Tribune and the Daily News, among others.

For this picture, Weegee was allowed into the police lineup room when Anthony Esposito, a gunman accused of killing a police officer, was booked.

View a brief biography and other works by this artist in the Getty online collections.