So when you say you did a hard reboot, please explain what you did. There are photo recovery apps for free on Google Play that will help you locate them.
A soft reboot is Restart from the power off menu. A hard reboot is turning the phone off, then turning it on. A factory reset (which is what I think you mean by "hard reboot" isn't a reboot, it deletes everything you've added to the phone since it came out of the box - including all your pictures. You can try Recovering files via adb (Post #22).