Born 1919, Manhattan, New York
Died 1959


From 1937 to 1940 Weiner studied painting in New York at the Art Students League and Pratt Institute. In 1940–42 he worked for the commercial photographer Valentino Sarra; he joined the Photo League in 1940. In the early forties PM magazine (1942), Popular Photography (1942) and U.S. Camera Annual (1943) all published his photographs. During World War II, Weiner was a photographer in the air force (1942–45), rejoining the League after the war. He served as the organization's vice president in 1947 and taught the advanced technique (1947–48) and workshop classes (1949–51). He was also a frequent contributor to Photo Notes. Outside the League, Weiner ran his own commercial photography studio (1946–49). He was particularly known for his strong opposition to cropping and resizing of photographs by editors, or otherwise removing them from their context. In the 1950s he freelanced for magazines such as Collier's, for which he documented the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott (1955–56). Weiner was killed in an airplane crash on assignment.