J. Allen Hansley photographs

A Guide to the Collection

Biographical Note

J. Allen Hansley was born in Dallas, Texas on January 20, 1949. He was a well-known celebrity and event freelance photographer in Dallas for over 30 years. The earliest examples of Hansley’s photography are slides dating from the late 1970s to 2004. Hansley was employed by many local organizations and businesses, but he also traveled to other areas for his work. Hansley specialized in event photography including parties, weddings, store openings, anniversaries, corporate portraits, fashion shows, business and political conventions and various meetings. His photographs were used in news papers and magazines as well as brochures and flyers. Some of his videos were aired on WFAA-TV in Dallas. His client/event list included the Loews Anatole Hotel, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, USA Film Festival, the opening of the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, official photographer for the “Ramses the Great” Exhibit in Fair Park Dallas in 1989, the Crystal Charity Ball, the Cattle Baron's Ball, the Dallas Opera and Dallas Symphony Orchestra events. Hansley’s digital work was listed on websites such as IMMEDIA.net and PhotoReflect.

Hansley donated some of his time photographing charity events for such organizations as the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society, The Salvation Army, Bryan’s House for children with AIDS and the Dallas Child Advocacy Group as well as others.

In addition to work for these organizations, he was also a recognized celebrity photographer or paparazzo, capturing shots of many actors and actresses, political figures and social elite.

Hansley traveled extensively during his career going to Moscow, in the then Soviet Union, Egypt, Mexico, Spain, England, Italy, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. During these trips he would take “stock photos” and video in addition to paid assignments on location. Hansley died in February, 2005.

References: J. Allen Hansley’s autobiography, September 1, 2004 (unpublished).

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Scope and Contents of the Collection

An interesting aspect of the collection is seeing the changes in photographic technology over the years. Included are slides from the late 1970s and approximately 240,000 35mm negatives from the 1980s and early 1990s. By the mid 1990s, Hansley began to branch out into digital photography, keeping master copies of events on floppy disks. During the late 1990s, he created his own website (DallasFACES) a cyber magazine of events that he covered where people could look at and order copies of the images. From the late 1990s until the end of his career, Hansley started using the new medium of CDs for his collection. It is during this time that he also began to experiment with artistic digital photography. Though it is not documented, it seems he also made a business of creating disks for other artists, models and musicians. Also in the collection are binders of business related material including invoices, contacts and business cards.

Series 1 is made up of photographs of many celebrities and events for which there are negatives; also included are some related manuscript materials and albums. In the manuscript materials, there are examples of promotional information from Hansley’s business including his business cards and affiliates, and also correspondence from 1984 to 2004. There are also clippings of Hansley’s published photography dating from 1980 to 2002, along with some undated material. While almost all of the society pictures are credited to Hansley, some of the advertisements do not bear his credit line, but they are assumed to be by him. There is also documentation of Hansley’s business: phone messages, invoices, and contacts.

Series 2 consists of 35mm negatives organized by Hansley into numbered binders and makes up most of the collection. A majority of the listed subjects are of events. From the dates given, the negatives range from 1980 to 1999. In addition to the binders of negatives, there are sets of negatives that are still in sleeves and listed as “to sort”; several of these have notes attached regarding what the negatives represent.

In series 3, there are examples of Hansley’s digital art and miscellaneous photographs of Hansley. Several photograph albums containing groups of miscellaneous photographs such as those from travel or weddings are also included. Besides the photographic prints and negatives, there are several boxes containing floppy disks or CDs with digital photography. There is also a box of cassette tapes, most of which are TV recordings, a Graflex camera and lens.

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Restrictions

Access to Collection:

Collection is open for research use.

Publication Rights:

Permission to publish materials must be obtained from the Director of the DeGolyer Library.

Copyright Statement:

It is the responsibility of the user to obtain copyright authorization.

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Related Material

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Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

J. Allen Hansley photographs, DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University.

Acquisition Information

Gift, Lee Hansley, 2006, 2008, 2009.

Processing Information

Most of the collection consists of 35mm negatives organized by Hansley in binders. While many of these binders have lists of the contents, they were not organized in a uniform manner, and often dates were not included. During processing, the negative binders were arranged by year to the degree possible and housed in archival boxes. Slides were transferred into archival sleeves and stored in binders. Prints, correspondence and documents were filed by year in archival storage boxes.

Processing by Laura Irick, 2009.

Finding aid written by

Finding aid by Anne E. Peterson and Laura Irick with assistance from Ada Negraru, 2009.

Encoded by

Lara Corazalla, 2009.

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Detailed Description of the Collection

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