Pulitzer Prize Recipient Photographer. He received world acclaim as the 1947 Pulitzer Prize recipient for photography for his shot taken at four o'clock in the morning on December 7, 1946 as a woman jumped from the inferno of the burning Winecoff Hotel. Built in 1913 at the corner of Ellis and Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta, Georgia , the fire-resistant building met the 1911 fire codes, but with no fire escapes, sprinkler systems or fire doors in the hotel, the fire took the lives of 119 of the 280 hotel guests. As of 2019, this fire has been the worst hotel fire that has occurred in the United States. Victims included the hotel owner, William Fleming Winecoff, and his wife, along with out-of-town Christmas shoppers; fans of the newly-released Disney film "Song of the South," which premiered in Atlanta; and thirty of the most promising high school students in Georgia. The fire department's ladder only reached the eighth floor of the fifteen-story brick building, and their nets only withstood a jump from about seventy feet. It was learned later that the cause could have been an arsonist on the third floor. Fireman battled the blaze for two and a half hours. As a nearly twenty-six-year-old graduate from Georgia Technology University with an engineering degree, Hardy was an amateur photographer who worked in a research laboratory and the chemistry department at the university. He had taken his date home when he saw the hotel fire. On taking the photograph, he simply said, "As she passed the third floor, I fired, using my last flashbulb." He was the first amateur photographer to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize. After paying Hardy $200, his photograph, "Death From Blazing Hotel", was used by the Associated Press for publishing. Although the photograph implied that the woman died, she was later identified as fire survivor Daisy McCumber, who jumped from the 11th floor. Hardy refused a position offered by Associated Press as a photojournalist, but instead began a career-long X-ray equipment business. His photographed did impact the laws and regulations concerning fire codes in the United States and maybe the world. Hardy's interest in photography faded in the years to come, as "nothing could compare to the Pulitzer Prize photograph."