Thanks for having a look at hankoneal.com, my new web site. The idea behind it is twofold. The first is to simply showcase the nearly five decades of photographs and writings that have been a major part of my life and in so doing to make viewers aware these photographs and writings exist as a potential resource for casual viewing, reading or possibly for more serious matters. The second is to create an online forum that may indicate to me the degree of interest there might be in my ongoing book and photographic projects. These are the “serious matters” and this blog is the way I will reach out to those who might have an interest.

Three of the numerous writing and photographic projects I have in the works relate to photographs of people and stories about them. There are two categories of portraits: jazz musicians and celebrated or otherwise fascinating people that I have interacted with and photographed. These are the photographs and stories that I will post online.

There are two sets of jazz photographs. One features the most noted performers of the second half of the 20th Century. The working title of this book is The Golden Age of Jazz. The other jazz photographs and stories are from The Jazz Pianists, a book that discusses one hundred pianists with whom I’ve worked over the years. The photographs of celebrated and fascinating people are from the same period and range from movie stars to politicians to artists to whoever has crossed my path when I had a camera in my hand. The working title of this book is Interactions.

I thought it would be interesting to post some of these photographs and stories online, as they are completed. The photographs already exist, except for the ones I may take tomorrow, but the stories are in various stages of completion and as they are finished and as time allows, I will post them. I am uncertain as to the frequency, but my guess is they will appear about three or four times a week, with at least one from each book.

To get things started, I have chosen one subject from each of the three projects for the first posts this week, Dizzy Gillespie from 1991, Jacqueline Onassis, taken in 1979 and Earl Hines from The Jazz Pianists. I hope you enjoy the photographs and stories and if you miss them the first time around, I’ll probably post these two and possibly others, a second time, when these posts have a bit more traction and there is a slightly larger audience for my blog. Please let me know what you think of the photographs and stories.