As with many of the best photographers, Weegee merely used a camera in his "world." He understood that world so intimately, and in all its facets, that the pictures often become "something else;" a very specific view of something we won't see otherwise; a visual and emotional view. Like Lewis Hine, who was driven to overturn child labor laws, and used photography for that purpose. There, the camera is almost incidental; zen like. May I be opinionated here please? For all his mountains of philosophy, Ansel Adams's best work were highly refined, intense versions of those 1916 snapshots he took with a Brownie. That was his "world," yeah? When he consciously tried to be "an artist," the work isn't at the same level. You know, boards and thistles, the rose against the wood, the tombstone, the anchors . . . they're "good" but he's trying to be Stieglitz or Strand: "This is 'ART'"!
Wonderful work doesn't have to be loud and thundering either. Charles Pratt's pictures are quiet, friendly, pleasant things - you really have to pay attention to them. No pretense, no posing, no bluster; and as good as anything you'll see. I would've liked to spend an afternoon with him.
Lots of photographers make pictures that are "about photography," not their world. They have this marvelous equipment and need something to do with it. The work ends up being a series of recordings of what's out there - a "casual, superficial" record. Their "world" doesn't enter into it. I was guilty of this for years, maybe I still am . . . Weegee's NYC nighttime world was raw, shocking, lurid, often horrifying. His later work, which is about photography, possesses little power.
May I be opinionated again? (Sorry folks.) After 1936, the best of Edward Weston's pictures are some of the full length nudes of Charis. (Why?) Also, my favorites of this period are the NYC nude of her lying prone with the window above her, and the one in the fog with the watch on her wrist. Very powerful - to me. Some might hold that the much of the other stuff from that period is . . . less than powerful. Beautifully realized and printed, but just records . . .
There's one Weegee picture of a drunk lying unconscious on a counter, he has a dark suit on but no trousers. The uniformed cops behind him are laughing at something; maybe the drunk, maybe something else. That picture is layers and layers deep; you could take a 2 hour walk and ponder it. Shattering.