Six decades of photographs, paced like a book
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Burk Uzzle was the youngest photographer LIFE magazine ever hired, at 23, and later President of Magnum, the photographers' cooperative. His picture of a couple wrapped in a blanket at dawn became the cover of the Woodstock album, and his archive spans almost six decades.
The site has to hold fourteen collections and five books, let a visitor move through them at the pace of looking, and never feel like a template a hundred other photographers use. Everything else steps back so the photographs carry it.
The first scroll
A homepage that moves like turning pages
Scroll and the headline pulls apart, then big photographs ride up the page, each holding still while the next step of his process slides past. A photographer gets judged in seconds, so the first thing a curator does here is page through his work, the way they would a book.
The archive
Fourteen collections, each told as a scroll
Every collection opens on a title card with a few lines from Burk, steps through the photographs with their captions, and ends on THE END with every other collection one click away. Arrow keys and swipes move through it, and a slow cross-fade sets the pace of looking.
Each collection opens on a title card
Navigation
The whole archive behind one button
A black rail sits on the left of every page with the wordmark and a single menu button. Open it and the archive is there: fourteen collections, five books, the stories and the film. Nothing competes with the photographs until a visitor asks for it.
The stories
The story behind the photograph
Thirteen articles in Burk's own words sit behind the collections: how the Woodstock cover happened, Dr. King's funeral, the Prophets project. Each collection links to its story and each story links back, so a visitor who stops on one picture can find out why it exists.
In print
Five books, paged like the real thing
Perceptions + Recognitions, Just Add Water, Family Named Spot, All American and Landscapes each get a page that loops through the photographs like a book left open on a table. Somebody who knows the books finds them, and everyone else sees what's inside.
About
The record a curator looks for
The about page leads with what a curator checks first: LIFE at 23, President of Magnum in 1979 and 1980. Beside it, a short menu to his exhibitions, museum collections, books, lectures and the film F11 and Be There.
In hand
A card as bold as the work
Black over white, with UZZLE set right on the line between them. It carries the same wordmark as the site's rail and the watermark on every photograph, so a curator who pockets it at an opening lands somewhere that looks like the card in their hand.
To his list
The people who already follow his work
Essays, new bodies of work and the occasional event go out to the collectors and curators who asked to hear from him. The mail carries the same wordmark and the same restraint as the site, so an email in the inbox and a page on the screen read as one hand.
Essays, new work and the occasional event, in the same hand as the site
Under the hood
Photographs sized for every screen
Every photograph ships in several widths, so a phone downloads a phone-sized file and a large monitor gets the full one. An archive this image-heavy still opens quickly.
I keep the archive current
When Burk has new work, he sends it and I add it and reorder the collection, so the archive keeps growing without him learning a CMS.
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