- For 65 years and counting, Burk Uzzle has created some of the most iconic photographs in American history. From Martin Luther King Jr. to Woodstock to America's small towns and back roads, Uzzle's photographs have provided a breathtaking commentary on American civil rights, race, social justice, and art. Initially grounded in documentary photography when he was the youngest photographer hired by LIFE magazine at age 23, his work grew into a combination of split-second impressions reflecting the human condition during his tenure as a member of the international Magnum cooperative founded by one of his mentors, Henri Cartier-Bresson. An electrifying fusion of music, image, and dialogue, F11 AND BE THERE captures the life and artistry of Uzzle, including his current portrait work with the African American community in Eastern North Carolina.
- Though Burk Uzzle's contributions to the mediums of art photography and photojournalism over a 60+ year career are innumerable, this film finds its center in his contemporary portraiture work with African Americans in Eastern North Carolina. F/11 and Be There is a journey alongside one of America's most prolific photographers whose archive spans over six decades and captures images of race, inequality and injustice through the many parallels of the 20th and 21st centuries, still just as relevant and timely today. Burk is well known for his work in Life Magazine in the 1960s, Woodstock (Cover of the Woodstock album), Martin Luther King Jr, Bobby Kennedy, Civil Rights, Cambodia, and so many other bodies of work. He was close associates with Henri Cartier-Bresson and was president of Magnum Photos (1979-1980). His contemporary work is in the permanent collection of multiple art museums in the south.
As an artist at the age of 80, Burk Uzzle shows no signs of slowing in his fervor and adoration for the medium that has been the impetus for his entire life. F/11 and Be There catches up with Burk only a few years after his transition into digital photography. This film provides a window into his vast archive and history, his contemporary portraiture and landscape work, and his genial and irreverent nature as a "skinny southern boy who can barely speak the English language," as he would put it. As vibrant and whimsical as many of his photographs are, so too are his musings about the philosophies of art and living.
During the process of making this film, it has been easy to see that the way in which Burk Uzzle approaches the photographic process is ontological - it is a way of being. He does not merely use his technical wizardry and vast experience to photograph a subject in an interesting way, rather, he is endlessly seeking to present the aura of the individual through a picture. His artistry continues to connect us with appreciation and understanding of the essence of a particular place or person. F/11 and Be There is a film about how he locates core moments that amplify how we see our collective selves, values, and communities. A current project documenting the African-American South is a prism into his affinities and priorities, and his belief that portraiture is still a new frontier in photography.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content