NEIGHBORS / SHORT TAKES : Celebrity Focus : Ventura resident’s Fotofinders worldwide business all started with a new camera and Disneyland encounter with Michael Jackson.

Laurene Kuehn was at the Hungry Hunter restaurant in Ventura a couple of weeks ago when the waitress told her about a friend who had recently taken a picture of Princess Di. This is hardly something the average costumer is apt to hear, but it came as no surprise to Kuehn.

Kuehn, a Ventura resident, runs a business called Fotofinders U.S.A., through which she takes people’s celebrity photos and markets them around the world.

It all started last New Year’s, a day after Kuehn purchased her first camera. She, her family, and her camera were waiting in line at Disneyland when Michael Jackson walked by. Kuehn said she approached the singer and began shooting away. “I didn’t realize I had a Telephoto lens on,” she said, “so I got all these close-ups of his acne and surgery scars.”

Kuehn started calling around and found some interest in the photos. Since then she has discovered that selling photos can be lucrative. “You get the right picture and you can retire for life,” she said.

But she said she does draw the line. “Someone offered me naked pictures of Nick Nolte’s ex-wife,” she said. “You have to have good moral judgment. You don’t want to hurt someone.”

Last week, while browsing through a 1992 Pacific Bell telephone book, we came across the listing for a Camarillo business known as the Institute for the Attainment of Wealth. It sounded intriguing so we called. The number is no longer in service.

Happy birthday to Job Vernon Kimber, who will turn 100 on Monday. His children have planned a party and family reunion Saturday at Ojai’s St. Joseph’s Convalescent Hospital, where Kimber lives.

Not only are the 28 great-grandchildren, 24 grandchildren, and four daughters invited, but an invitation has been extended to anyone in the county who remembers Kimber.

And there may be a lot of people out there who remember him.

Kimber has lived in the county since the 1920s and was the last roads commissioner employed by the county. “He was well-known simply because he was out on the byways looking at roads all the time,” said daughter Virginia Larkin of Ojai. The public is welcome, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Have any good ghost stories? Ventura historian and ghost expert Richard Senate would love to hear them.

In early August, Senate will begin filming a one-hour documentary on the ghosts of Ventura, to be shown on Cable Channel 6 in Ventura several times around Halloween. He’s trying to find people who have actually had first-hand encounters with ghosts.

Senate said the show will likely include tales of the Bella Maggiore Inn ghost and the Ventura City Hall ghost.

“The old jail above the Parks and Recreation office is supposed to have a ghost and there’s one in the council chambers,” he said. “They’ve got a phone that goes from the council chambers to the Police Department, and occasionally when the place is locked up someone activates the phone lines.”

By the way, while looking through his records, Senate discovered that there have been a relatively large number of ghost stories from Kalorama Street.

If you would like to share an account of a ghostly experience, call Senate at the Olivas Adobe, 644-4346, or at his home, 388-1812. Senate does plan, however, to limit the number of stories in the documentary to 13. “Isn’t that a nice number?” he asked.