Yes, the sun
has risen again.
I can hear my heart regular and strong. I will live to see the day end as I lived to see earth turn molten and white, then to metal, then to whatever shape we stamped into it as we laughed the long night hours away or sang how the eagle
flies on Friday. When Friday came, the early hours perfect and cold, we cursed our only lives and passed the bottle back and forth.
Recently, Mary Ann sent me one of the many slides I took while stationed on the island of Okinawa for 18 months during 1967-68. While on the island most all my images were taken using Ektachrome slide film, which I preferred over Kodachrome slide film. Most of my images were of places, and things and I felt Ektachrome was more natural. Kodachrome provided warmer images, making it better for portraits.
During my time in Okinawa, I covered most of the island, which is approximately 70 miles long and an average 7 miles wide, on my 90cc Honda. The above image was one of the few portraits I took while there, and it came about strictly by accident. I was in north-central Okinawa at the Fukugawa Falls, which was a great place for school children to go on a field-trip. Children were playing and enjoying the outing. There was one boy was sitting quietly on a big rock near the falls. Taken by his solitude, I started watching him and decided to take a photo of him, moving from right to left when he looked at me. I took his picture. Immediately, his body language told me he wasn’t pleased, never smiling once.
For me, the of this schoolboy captured so much of the rural Okinawan culture. At that time, the island of Okinawa was an American territory. The Ryukyuan people, at best just tolerated our presence, reminding me very much of native Americans.
Over the years since taking this image, it has remained etched in my brain. Recently, in a conversation with Mary Ann during our visit to Ft. Collins, CO, she told me she had kept the slide separate from all the other Okinawan slides and would send it to me.
For a slide taken in 1967, it was in excellent condition. It helped that Mary Ann had kept the slide separate from all the other Okinawan slides. I had Photographic Works, here in Tucson scan a high-resolution file.
Over the last fifty years, I have taken thousands of images, this one remains my favorite. It was one of those “right place, right time events.” The original image was with a Canon FT QL camera and a 130 mm Canon lens. This camera and lenses were stolen in the early 1970’s and replaced with an FTb QL, which I still have.
B/W reproduction of the original slide by kenne
A moment captured An intrusion of the soul Now one in our time.
I saw her to the south a queen of many colors on a bed of many riddles young, yet slightly old beneath her skin —
secrets in the shadows
from which revelation comes. Who is this muse of revelation
when she passes through
the eye of the viewer?
“Yellow Flower in Circles and Squares” — Image by kenne
Sometimes to appreciate beauty it must be taken out of context to capture a new perspective based on my love of nature, sex
and life in a new consciousness
for the flower is neither
a subject nor an object
apart from being a flower.
Profound commitment to a dream does not confine or constrain: it liberates. Even a difficult, winding path can lead to your goal if you follow it to the end.
It’s hard for me to believe that it was six weeks ago when I ordered the materials and began the preliminary preparation for a fountain in our backyard.
There are many reasons why so long,
not the least of which was the delayed delivery of
the fountain pedestal, which finally can in yesterday.
By working with nature, you can look into your own nature.
San Pedro River Valley from Green Mountain (April 19, 2013) — Image by kenne
Green Mountain Blues
Today I heard the Burro Fire is burning near the Green Mountain Trail, one of many beautiful trails in the Santa Catalina Mountains.
The trail begins in a lush and green forest ponderosa pines, Douglas firs and sloping rock formations leading to the top of Green Mountain.
Soon the forest changes to oaks and manzanitas allowing for spectacular panoramic views of the San Pedro River Valley to the northeast. (The direction of the Burro Fire.)
Unless your feet carry you it’s not likely most people will every see these Sky Island vistas hidden from the mainstream of people driving Catalina Highway.
Today I sit at my computer going through blog posting of hiking the Green Mountain trail hoping firefighters will contain the Burro Fire before it destroys Green Mountain.
In each of the many photos I have taken I feel the mountain and listen to myself trying to put feeling into words, which I say without listening then I hear it without saying.
The images I possess have recorded what was in time will recapture new vistas open for view through nature’s door hinged in the air.
One of my favorite books of poetry is Riprap and the Cold Mountain Poems, by Gary Snyder.
The book includes Snyder’s translations of Han-shan’s Cold Mountain Poems. Han-shan was both a man and a mountain, a mountain madman in an old line of ragged hermits. He lived at a place called Cold Mountain, a poor poet having a crazy character. He wrote poems that were rough and fresh, and when he wrote about Cold Mountain, he means himself, his home, his state of mind.
— kenne
Gary Snyder reading “I settled at Cold Mountain long ago . . .”
Lupine Blue Butterfly On Buckbush Blossoms -- Images by kenne
Fire On The MountainDown valley a smoke hazeRises above the CatalinasSix days of fire and heatAfter 100 days of no rain.I try to remember the smell of rainOf mid-afternoon thunderstorms In the Sky Islands of my beautiful desertNurturing wildflowers and butterflies.I turn and go back to Mt. Lemmon
Thinking of the recent moments
Hiking with friends through young
aspens and pines
caught on steep ridges
Between heaven and earth.
-- kenne
Computer Painting by kenne
Okinawan Schoolboy, 1967-68 — Images by kenne
For a slide taken in 1967, it was in excellent condition. It helped that Mary Ann had kept the slide separate from all the other Okinawan slides. I had Photographic Works, here in Tucson scan a high-resolution file. 
B/W reproduction of the original slide by kenne
Computer Painting by kenne
Bye-Bye — Image by kenne
Image by kenne
Black & White Image by kenne
“Star Power” Silverpuff Blossom In the Santa Catalina Mountains — Image by kenne
Computer Art by kenne
“Yellow Flower in Circles and Squares” — Image by kenne
Meadow Trail on Mt. Lemmon — Panorama by kenne
San Pedro River Valley from Green Mountain (April 19, 2013) — Image by kenne
Desert Chicory on Mt. Lemmon — Image by kenne
Marine Blue Butterfly On Buckbush Blossoms
Marine Blue Butterfly On Buckbush Blossoms
Lupine Blue Butterfly On Buckbush Blossoms -- Images by kenne
