Kamehameha in pictures

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

"Kalama Senior Picnic," 1962. Leslie Von Arnswaldt, far left, and Ned Goodness, right, pile seaweed on Kevin Mahoe. Luryier "Pop" Diamond photos Book signing 2 p.m. Saturday Borders, Ward Centre

"Sidelines," 1960. Michael Chun has his foot taped by the team trainer at the old Honolulu Stadium.

"Valentine's Day," 1957. Jeanine Oana and Keola Beamer exchange Valentines.

"Self-Portrait with Friends," 1989. Seated, next to Diamond: Lynn Chriss Fujita and Russell Itokazu; standing, second row: Lela Goodell, Mary Carvalho, Petricia Tiffany, David Tome, Lynette Osaki; third row: Robin Racoma, Michael Young, John White, Bruce Lum and Wayne Haberman.

"Stringing a Lei," 1961-62. Haunani Olivera and other keiki at Kamehameha learn to create their own garlands.

This was Luryier "Pop" Diamond's home, the place where he spent more time than anyplace else. He still spends a chunk of most days there because, although he's retired as campus photographer and photography teacher, he was hired to manage the school archives and still inhabits an office in the library.

His students still remember him, and not only because "Images of Aloha" (Kamehameha Schools Press, 2003, $59.95), a photo chronicle of the time he was busiest behind the shutter, is starting to occupy coffee tables everywhere.

One of them, Raymond Hoku Lutz, had sought him out in the archives and flung his arms around him. Diamond recognized Lutz, but a lot of the other alumni look nothing like their high-school incarnations, he said.

"There was one who came to one of the book-signings," Diamond said later. "He gave me a great big hug.

I said, 'Thanks a lot, but who the hell are you?' "

That's Pop Diamond. Irascible to the end.

Luryier is a family name. His first student (Diamond remembers him: "Ernesto Hoa, Class of '54") gave him his nickname — and it stuck.

"The faculty didn't like it, of course," he said. "Disrespect, and all that. I figured, 'The hell with them! I like it!' "

At 87, Diamond sometimes has trouble focusing as he'd like. So, other than the schools' annual song contest, he doesn't take many shooting gigs anymore. But if he did, it's certain he'd resist the digital revolution. Diamond does what he likes, and he likes black-and-white photography.

The images of "Images," possess the clarity and intensity characteristic of photos printed from negatives considerably larger than 35 millimeters. His 2?-by-2? and 4-by-5 rigs, now about a half-century old, are filed but not forgotten in the cabinet behind his desk.

The larger camera produced fabulous work but, he admitted, it weighs a ton.

"It was murder going to a football game at night," Diamond said, "but I did it."

He captured football games, chess games, konane games and the sundry fun-and-games students play when they think nobody's looking. The fact that someone WAS looking is what makes the book a page-turner.

Diamond, who with his wife lived on campus for a time, rarely went anyplace without his camera. That's how he got the shot of the kid about to wallop a classmate with a guitar during a class picnic. Or the one of a student "hitting the books," face down on his desk, fast asleep. Or the boys wearing ti-leaf skirts, shooting hoops while on break from hula practice.

There are lots of pictures of boys decked out in JROTC uniforms which, until the program's recent closure, was a common sight.

"When we were an ROTC school, the students were different," he said. "They had to toe the line. Now the discipline isn't as strict. Now they dress the way they please, for the most part."

The Manhattan-born Diamond came to Hawai'i in 1943 when his Army unit arrived in Hilo, ultimately bound for Bataan. When that Philippine peninsula fell to the Japanese, plans changed: "I spent the whole war in Hilo," he said.

Diamond has indulged a lifelong love of music through his collection of operatic broadcast tapes and the occasional stage performance in community productions. Photography was uncharted territory, but in Hilo, inspired by the natural beauty, he decided to learn.

He bought a used camera and the owner of Hilo Camera (Diamond doesn't recall his name) taught him. He picked up darkroom technique through practice — "My commanding officer loved to have his picture taken," he said — and he's done his own developing ever since.

At Kamehameha, his first job was writing publicity releases, which he loathed. The photography job came as pure salvation.

In it, he has met famous people, some of whom appear in the book. One was celebrated photographer Ansel Adams, with whom Diamond had a memorable chat.

"He was trying to decide whether to be a photographer or a concert pianist," Diamond recalled. Another frustrated musician.

There are pictures of Queen Elizabeth II, Mary Kawena Pukui, Duke Kahanamoku. Even more interesting, however, are the shots of the soon-to-be-famous. The Brothers Cazimero (Roland was a photography student). Keola Beamer, handing a valentine to another tyke. Activist Walter Ritte, in the throes of a basketball maneuver.

Kamehameha's Luryier "Pop" Diamond in 1989.

For his part, Diamond hates being photographed, refusing a shot for this story. But he does include a whimsical self-portrait in the book. Diamond, clutching a remote shutter trigger, is surrounded by colleagues, all wearing Groucho glasses to approximate his appearance.

The principal joy he reaps from photography, however, has little to do with the finished product. It's the process he loves.

"What I like best," he said, "is not being stuck behind a desk. You are free to come and go."

Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.