I’m so sorry for your family’s loss. Nearly every post I’ve read talks about Ken’s kindness. They’re not exaggerating; he was genuine.
Being a naive, young kid at CM Life in the late 80’s, Ken was one of my first mentors. I never did get that coveted spot interning at The Chronicle, but, luckily I was a Chip, a Boothie and got to become one of his friends. In critiques he was firm, constructive, of course kind, but, never cut me slack. Like the picture Robert Allan Barclay posted, those times where we all got to converge at the same assignment, usually on the sidelines in The Mountain Town, are still some of my fondest memories. We never stopped talking and laughing and Ken never missed “the moment,” as we’d find out in the next day’s Chronicle.
I aspired to be as good a photographer, but, more so to figure out that graceful balance and sense of contentment he had.
Some other memories of Ken: that funny looking Canon Mirror (500?) lens for feature hunting when I got to spend the day shadowing him. The smile. Prints on the back of CM Life’s darkroom door. The gentle kindness he possessed…and beneath that all-American, kid next-door persona were some of the funniest, dirtiest jokes I’d ever heard. He helped take my training wheels off in photojournalism.
You’re in my family’s thoughts and prayers.