James Hardesty -Legacy Collection

A portrait of James Allen Hardesty.

Dec. 2020

This is my grandfather, James Allen Hardesty. He’s always been “Ba” to me. He, my father, my son, and I all share the same middle name.

Behind his gentle face and soft spoken voice, there’s a man with unwavering character that has stood the test of time.

They say hard times create strong men, and with my grandpa, I believe it.

At 13 years old, his mother walked out on their large family of 11 children and his father went blind, leaving him and a sister to take care of most of the others with hardly any money. He and his sister Patty would often go around picking up pop bottles to sell for extra cash.

At 13 years old he had to learn to drive, which landed many tickets with the local police department, but that was what he had to do to support his family. At a young age he worked newspaper routes and eventually landed a job washing dishes for Winston’s Motel making 21 cents an hour and getting supper. It’s still out there on highway 412.

In my grandpa’s junior year of high school, he dropped out to work at a gas station because the school faculty told him he’d never make it anywhere in life. After working there for a while, he saw that without an education he really wouldn’t get very far. He went back to school and finished to get his diploma.

He met my grandma when they were young children, but she knew at 14 years old she would marry him. He became great friends with her brothers and those boys would constantly be out on adventures and sometimes would find their fun by making some hotrods and drag racing through the streets.

One night racing on I-40 at about 120 mph, they got into a bit of a fight with a rival racer after crashing into one another. There were a lot of crazy things about my grandpa that I never would’ve guessed to be true.

A story often told and fondly remembered is the day after my grandma and grandpa’s honeymoon. It was a Sunday morning and they wanted to take their brothers and sisters to church so the big deal of it all is them coming to church with “Just married” written on their car and having all of those kids come out with them. I wonder what the passersby thought of that!

At age 23, he had been drafted to the army. He had only been married for three years so it was a hard adjustment for him and my grandma. He was stationed at Fort Lee in late 1961. He had many adventures up and down the east coast while serving.

Times were different back then and racism was rampant. At the University of Alabama, Governor Wallace was trying to keep out African American students from entering the school. My grandfather was sent out to defy Governor Wallace’s attempt to keep segregation alive.

Around that same time, my grandpa and some of his army buddies went to a restaurant for some burgers. Some of his friends with him were people of color and they were not welcomed to the establishment. After that, they decided that if their friends and fellow Americans couldn’t be served, then they wouldn’t be served either. They promptly left and never went back.

After serving his country, he came back to get a job at Tulsa Wench. He became the first person to run a CNC machining center there. It could do 14 operations in one shop. He worked there 24 years.

A picture of my grandfather working at Tulsa Wench in the 70’s

He then got into aircraft work at Chemtronics and worked there for 10 years before retiring. After 6 years of retirement, he helped my dad with his small business in welder repairs.

At the time of writing this, my grandparents have been married for 62 years and I’ve never seen or heard of an argument between them. They really are best friends and give a great example of how a marriage should work.

My grandpa is a very humble person, so getting this information I can’t help but think he’s being at least a little mischievous in hiding some of the greatness of his so called “long, boring life.” He’s a great man and I’m very thankful for the time spent with him.

My grandpa has been described as tough but fair, funny, gentle, quiet, respectful, and peaceful. These words are nice, but I don’t think words could really perfectly describe him. You’d have to know this man to get a sense of who he really is, but I can assure you, he is a man of strong character.

He still gets around just fine at 82 years old and just a few years ago I saw him jumping in a bouncy house at my little cousin’s birthday party.

He’s a great teacher and story teller and he often tells me that we don’t have to do things. We get to do things. I didn’t quite appreciate hearing that at first because we were usually talking about school and homework, but now I think I know what he means.

With the mess that 2020 has been, it’s been more and more evident to me just how precious each second is and I’ve been extremely blessed to learn from a man like my grandpa.

At the closing of this story, I’m not sure how to end it, but he reminded me that the story isn’t over yet and he very well may do something else before too long.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this story. Be sure to treasure each second you have with your loved ones and always, always, always be looking to learn.

Thank you Ba!

Band Shoot at the Cain’s Ballroom

I’ve always wanted to do a shoot at a venue, and I finally got the opportunity to do so at the historic Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It started out as an inquiry for a senior shoot, but stick around to get the story of how I got to shoot an entire band!

A few weeks ago, I was asked to do a senior shoot. I didn't know any of the when or where until a few days after when I learned that they were wanting to go to the Cain’s Ballroom. I was fairly anxious thinking about how I could possibly get private access to the venue in a timely manner. Amazingly, my client had already gotten that taken care of! Exact dates and times were still up in the air, but we finally got a spot on a Sunday afternoon.

In the following days, I received a phone call saying that the senior was in a hometown band and they were wondering if they could get pictures of the whole band. I was all over that! The idea of doing pictures for a band at such a historic location was irresistible! I realized that I’d need some different gear than normal since I’d be indoors with very low light while photographing a small group of people. I stayed up all night researching what kind of lens and light I’d need for this task. I decided to rent a wide angle 16-35mm lens from Borrowlenses.com. I knew I’d also need a secondary light (I’ve had my eye on one for a couple of years) so I bought the Flashpoint eVOLV 200 Pro for a lightweight and powerful light.

On the day of the shoot, I made sure to show up an hour early, which helped a lot because construction in the area delayed my route and I needed the extra time to get myself together. A little while later, the band had arrived. Those four guys were very respectful and each one of them had a good, strong handshake.

We got inside and it was very dimly lit. I was using external flash only during the entire time we were in there. I wanted to get establishing shots of the group together on the stage to set the pace. I was completely blown away hearing them sing and play their music! Extremely talented young men! After the first few group shots we went with individuals.

For the individual shots I wanted to see how each one of them shined by themselves. I chose to get wider, more dynamic angles than I typically shoot, but they captured a lot of the atmospheric passion these guys had for their art of music. I loved the low, wide angle shot of Michael playing his guitar!

After we finished up pictures inside, we went outside to get a requested shot of the guys on the corner of Easton and Main. During our walk there, we passed under a bridge and it gave me an idea for some more group shots!

These guys were a blast to work with and they are outstanding young men! Their band is called The Destination and they are a Red Dirt Rock band based in Stigler, Oklahoma. Strong and rustic vocals paired with heavy rock influences make this band a great listen! You should check them out. They are on Youtube, Apple Music, Spotify, Facebook, and Instagram.

Senior Session with Alizay Boss

One of my favorite photoshoots was Alizay’s senior session. I was very nervous at first because she was the first professional shoot I had done since the mess of 2020’s pandemic. However, when she had arrived, the familiar face of my old friend quickly replaced my nervousness with excitement.

We took our first shots in front of the Orpheum theater in Okmulgee. I wanted a really clean soft light without too much going on to get a relaxed atmosphere started. I tuned in my ambient and set my strobe light to pop off a nice glow across her providing a nice catchlight in her eyes. Keeping technical things basic allowed us to warm up with posing and get some good personality shots.

One of our first shots

in front of the Orpheum

Once we had gotten in the groove, I wanted to get a little more dramatic with posing, which Alizay was a master of! I placed her in front of a darker background and slightly underexposed the ambient light so that she would be the eye-popping center of attention. I was impressed with what we got.

A little more dramatic

posing from Alizay

After getting everything I wanted in front of the orpheum, I thought it would possibly be worthwhile to get some pictures in front of the mural. I know what you’re thinking. Everybody gets pictures in front of the mural. I told Alizay that it’s not cliche if we do it better than everyone else. That’s where we got some of my favorites!

I wanted to keep things dramatic without losing out on such a vibrant and abstract background. We made use of the rail for posing and made sure to get some of Alizay’s trademarked sass with her expressions. We kept the lighting subtle but also made use of the strobe light to add shape and dimension to her face.

Alizay in front

of the “cliche” mural

I just want to say here and now that the best way to get the best pictures of someone is to interact and connect with them. The goal is to have the subject completely forget about the camera so that they will be in their most natural form. Cameras do weird things to people!

During a little break, we were making our way across the street and I noticed how the setting sun caught behind her and cast a majestic and angelic radiance around her. This was our chance for something extraordinary. I had her stop where she was while I got the composition I wanted and had her pose. This one took a lot more work than the others but the result would be worth it. I had to crank up my shutter speed to avoid getting the background too bright and miss out on the detail of how the sunlight interacted with her hair. From there, I had to kick on high speed sync for my strobe to keep up with such a fast shutter speed. I set my strobe to full power and got what I was after. Something Alizay would be extremely proud to see.

Beautiful light coming from

the sun spilling in

Overall, we had a ton of fun getting some pretty awesome pictures for Alizay. I learned to not be afraid of trying something new as well as to not be afraid of trying something old as long as you’re willing to work out the details and add something better to overused “cliches.” Some of our best shots came from the mural that I thought had been overused. I also learned that grinding out the small stuff can and will pay off with the shot of Alizay with the sun glowing behind her.

Tips to remember

• Connection is key to capturing personality

• Be careful to not overlook certain scenes or lighting conditions

• Hard work pays off

• Just have fun!

Thank you for reading! I hope to hear from you soon. Leave a comment and please share to other friends, especially if they’re nervous in front of a camera or don’t know what to do about getting pictures done.