Photographer Burk Uzzle reflects on images from the Burk Uzzle Collection at the Wilson Special Collections Library.
For more than six decades, North Carolina photojournalist Burk Uzzle has captured defining images of American life. In 2021, the Kohler Foundation donated Uzzle’s photographic archive to the Wilson Special Collections Library.
The collection contains more than 100,000 items, spanning Uzzle’s prolific career and including some of his work for Life magazine and with Magnum Photos.
“Burk is in his 80s now, still photographing, and still re-inventing himself. He has always re-invented himself,” says Stephen Fletcher, photographic archivist at Wilson Library. “Researchers into the future will appreciate Burk’s different avenues for capturing the world around him.”
As an introduction to the vast archive, Fletcher selected a handful of images to represent Uzzle’s work. Then, in a series of interviews, Uzzle reflected on each. He explains his approach as letting his heart guide his eye. “The heart must have integrity, good values,” he says, “and of course, the photographs must show strong visual craft in composition, lighting and erudition.”
Uzzle’s mentor at Magnum, Henri Cartier-Bresson, encouraged him to study the Italian quattrocento painters of the 15th century. These painters were known to compose their works from left to right in the frame, and also forward and backward. Uzzle used this technique in his most famous photo—the 1969 image of a young couple embracing at Woodstock—and in the works Fletcher selected here.
“Congregation Ladies” (2021)
“Part of the reason I moved to Wilson was because of my interest in photographing Black Americans. Wilson is a beautiful town, very rich for photography. I attend Black churches regularly, and I noticed these ladies and their sense of style. I invited them to my studio to be photographed. They started bringing their clothes and hats a week or two in advance. Some of them had 12 to 15 hats each, and they told me, if you mess up one of these hats, you will die. I scrubbed the floor of my studio and started to arrange the hats on the floor. I decided on a left-to-right, red, white and blue arrangement, and then placed their outfits in parallel.
The ladies were quite taken with an assistant of mine at the time, Wylie Edwards, and flirted with him as he helped me adjust the hats. That caused the laughter you see in this photo.”
“Danbury State Fair” (1977)
“I love to roam. I love to walk. I love to go slow and just wander around. On a road trip through New England, I wandered into Danbury (Connecticut) and its state fairgrounds. I spotted that odd building with its whimsical figures on top. When I realized it was the restrooms, I knew it had potential for a photo of people coming and going. I sat down on a grassy bank and watched, but the combination I wanted wasn’t happening. I finally got tired. I went to sleep on the bank. And when I woke up, the people were there. It was an incredibly magic moment where they were just right. I took a picture, just that one picture, and they were in the right position graphically and striding like human beings. It was just a perfect, perfect moment.”
“Motivation platoon” (1967)
“U.S. Marines are the meanest of the mean, the strongest of the strong, they think. When Marines are recruited, their drill sergeants run them through all sorts of drills on Parris Island, South Carolina. Really tough stuff. And if they don’t seem to be performing, the drill sergeants send them to the ‘motivation platoon,’ and that is when serious hard things happen. They put them in the mud, they make them crawl. So we decided to do a story on motivation platoon — what it’s like to be subjected to all of that. If they survive the motivation platoon with honor, they are good Marines.”
“Imperial Charity Ball” (1962)
“This photograph is from a 1962 photo essay I did for Life magazine on the subject of charity. The nice thing about working for Life was the entrée. You tell someone you want to do a photograph for Life magazine in their house, and they’ll practically lay down and die for you.
I have an engaging personality, and I encourage people to engage their personality. This is a moment when there is an exultation of self that this woman is exhibiting, which is a beautiful thing to see. She’s clearly an elegant, well-to-do lady, but not without the capacity for the very powerful feelings and examination of who she is.”
“Mime Artists” (2005)
“I can’t remember where I met these men, but it would have had to have been in one of the churches here in Wilson. I love photographing in my studio, and the interesting, organic feeling of that wall. I’ve photographed many people against that wall. Here, there is the contrast of the black shirts and white ties. There is one guy, second from the right, who does not have a tie. He’s the guy who I identify with.”
“Acid Park” (2019)
“When I moved to Wilson, several people kept saying, you have to go meet Vollis Simpson and see the whirligigs. They were insistent about it. When I did go out to see him, Vollis and I hit it off. We were like twins. We had such a good feeling between us. The independent nature of his artistry and innovations … who would have thought that a house mover could make poetry like that? But he did. Many afternoons I would sit by his side while he worked, and we would talk. We had wonderful fun, and really got to know each other.
One morning, I woke up to incredibly dense fog. It was still dark. I packed up all my stuff. In those days, I was still using an 8” by 10” camera — very big. But I knew exactly which lens I wanted to use: the wide angle. I drove my van to the whirligig park, hauled that big camera up on its roof, and set up the composition in a really big hurry. Then there was just enough light to take a photo and capture the fog. This was just sheer determination. That’s how photographers get great pictures.”
