ALFRED CHENEY JOHNSTON- The making of the book JAZZ AGE BEAUTIES

Hello Blog Reader- My name is Bob Hudovernik. If you have ever wondered about the process of how a non-fiction photography book gets published, you may be interested in reading my blog. This is the story behind my book JAZZ AGE BEAUTIES- The Collection of Lost Ziegfeld Photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston. It's the story of how it was written and how it got published. The book is scheduled to be released in late February of 2006 and will be available on ebay, through internet bookstores and in chain stores like Walmart and Barnes & Noble.

From the first idea for the book, to my research and early drafts I'll recount it all...from contacting potential publishers and agents to the frustrations of rejection and failure, from the joy of finally finding a publisher and then being rejected again...to then finding a new publisher. I'll tell your about the travails of working with an editor and developing a final draft, to the design and layout of the entire book of photographs - I'll tell it you all! And if you have any questions or comments I'll be happy to discuss them with you. Please, feel free to join in...it is my hope that you learn a thing or two about getting published too, and of course, I hope that you enjoy learning about the work of Alfred Cheney Johnston, the photographer that I spent seven years of my life researching and writing about.

So here goes....Back in 1998, I belatedly learned about the new phenomena internet site ebay. A local antique dealer in the small town of Cascade, Wisconsin near where my wife Ellie and I lived, "clued me into" ebay. "It's a great place to buy and sell things," she said. "You just won't believe what's going on there. And wait till you see the prices things are going for." It didn't take me long to see ebay's potential. I quickly learned how to surf the various categories in the Photography section, my main area of interest. I had been collecting antique photographs and cameras since the 1970's while I was attending Layton School of Art & Design in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and I absolutely loved Photography- especially the antique...the antique images revealed other worlds to me...stereoviews from China, or a World's Fair, or Victorian weddings....vintage prints of unknown people in albums, soft focus faces staring out of a grainy halation making them hard to see. Each had a story to tell...but no one had told them.

In the ebay Photography section I found thousands of such images to discover. Not just a few in a drawer at an antique shop, but an absolute stockpile of vintage prints. I began to buy and sell them on ebay, and I also began to create a personal collection of images, refining my interest into specialty areas, particularly, unusual human interest shots, artistic compostions, theatrical, and artist related. The experience of collecting them was absolutely exhilarating.

Sometime well into 1998 I came across my first Alfred Cheney Johnston photograph. I was absolutely stunned by the beauty of it. Others followed and I was smitten by the artistry of his work. In my next entry, I'll show you one of the early photos I was taken with and why.... BH