T H E S TAT E | I N S I D E R
No Talk Back
Joe Glyda excels in photography of a variety of subjects, most recently captured in his new WWII aviation book.
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OKLAHOMA MAGAZINE | JANUARY 2022
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efore you dive into Jenks resident Joe Glyda’s new oversized hardcover publication, WWII Aviation Artwork and the Stories Behind These Beautiful Birds, take a look at the lime green bands that mark both ends of the place where spine and pages meet. As is the case with each of the vintage aircraft covered inside, there’s a story there. “When I was younger,” he says, “my brothers and I built airplane models, and so did our dad. He’d always paint the inside of the wheel wells on his models lime green. I remember asking him, ‘Dad, isn’t it like the bottom of a car, all black and dirty under there?’ “He’d say, ‘No, no, no. That’s where the zinc chromate is. That’s the paint protection they use for the metal, before they paint the airplane. It kept the plane from falling apart.’ “So, when this book was being designed, the designer asked me, ‘What color would you like the headband?’ “I said, ‘What’s the headband?’ And she told me it was what keeps the book from falling apart. So I thought, well, let’s just make it lime-green, as a tribute to my dad.” That’s not the only thing about WWII Aviation Artwork inspired by Glyda’s father. In the book’s first chapter, Glyda tells about the slideshows his dad used to put together for family and friends, presentations consisting of pictures the elder Glyda had taken of planes and ships while serving as a Navy mechanic in the late ’40s and early ’50s. “A darkened room combined with the sound of the projector fan made the images come alive,” wrote Glyda. “They ap-
peared to be larger than life on the screen (at least they were to me).” From a very early age, it was clear to Glyda that his father loved airplanes, and he passed that love to Joe and his brothers in any number of ways – including taking them on day trips to watch the planes come in at Midway Airport in Chicago, not far from where the family lived. Glyda also inherited an affinity for photography from his father, and it was also in Chicago that he turned that interest into a career, beginning a 36-year run as a photographer for Kraft Foods. “Kraft had 2,700 products then, and I did everything from brochures to packaging – the photos for mac and cheese boxes, cheesecake, Cool Whip, DiGiorno pizza, Parkay margarine,” he says. “There were flyers that came out in newspapers every Sunday called FSI’s, free-standing inserts, and we used to photograph all of those in our in-house studio. I could be working on three or four different projects a week. “I always say that I photograph things that don’t talk back – food, architecture, aviation – but looking back on my career, I did photograph a lot of people,” he adds. “Kraft was a sponsor of NASCAR’s Roush Racing Team from 2001 to 2009, and I got to work with [drivers] Mark Martin, Matt Kenseth, Kurt Busch and Greg Biffle. I’d photograph the races, and the drivers and VIPs. So I would photograph people. I just liked photographing food so much better.” After taking early retirement from Kraft in 2009, Glyda continued to concentrate on those “things that don’t talk back” as a freelance commercial photographer, becoming especially well-known as a leader
