Mrs. George Washington Kavanaugh and her Daughter Leonora Warner 1943

Weegee, that wonderful lurker, made this photograph of Mrs. George Washington Kavanaugh and her daughter Leonora Warner with his characteristic unflinching directness. It's not about the perfect moment, but the real one. Look at the way the light catches Mrs. Kavanaugh’s fur coat, that soft, almost fluffy texture so different from the hard glint of her jewelry. It’s the texture of the moment, a fleeting glimpse of wealth and status, but also a hint of something more fragile. The purse clutched by Leonora, flat and boxy, almost like a painting within the painting, adds a geometric interruption to all that soft fur. Weegee was a master of capturing these kinds of social contrasts, not to make a judgment, but just to show them, raw and unvarnished. Like Diane Arbus, whose work shares a similar curiosity, Weegee shows us that photography, like painting, is about seeing – and letting us see, too.