'Just Add Water ~ Photographs by Burk Uzzle' released by Five Ties Publishing

Wednesday, 05 November 2008 22:57

 

BROOKLYN, NY - Just Add Water is the first book of large format color photographs by American master Burk Uzzle. A self-described "hard puppy to keep under the porch," Uzzle created the images in Just Add Water by traveling across the United States with his 8 x 10 camera, capturing the vivid, celebratory, sometimes eccentric personality of the American landscape in the unique style that has become his trademark. This book can be bought from Amazon.

“In most of these pictures I am exulting in America’s personality out on a limb with itself. It’s as if America and I try so hard to get everything right, but in spite of ourselves we invariably end up out on that limb, finding that often the only real salvation comes with a gentle chuckle and a sly, knowing smile. All of my pictures seem to conclude that logic, while useful to a point, is by itself a bore. So we might as well have a little fun, even if it’s in between some tears.” —Burk Uzzle

Burk Uzzle was born in 1938 in Raleigh, North Carolina, and began his career as a newspaper photographer. At age 23 he was the youngest contract photographer at LIFE magazine, and years later served two terms as president of Magnum Photos. Uzzle is known for his photographic coverage of the civil rights movement, as well as for capturing in his inimitable style the iconic and everyday aspects of American life and culture. One of his images graces the cover of the Woodstock album.

Uzzle’s work has been published and exhibited internationally, and is included in many private and museum collections. Now an independent photographer based in North Carolina, he spends several months of each year traveling and photographing throughout the United States. In 2006, Five Ties published A Family Named Spot, a monograph of Uzzle’s black-and-white photographs taken on trips across the country over the previous decade.

Vicki Goldberg, former photography critic for the New York Times, is one of the major voices in world photography. She is the author of, among many other works, American Photography: A Century of Images, The Power of Photography: How Photographs Changed Our Lives, and Margaret-Bourke White: A Biography. In 2006 Aperture published Light Matters, a collection of Goldberg’s essays spanning twenty-five years. She writes frequently on photography and the arts for the New York Times, Vanity Fair, American Photo, and other publications.

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