Kathleen McGivney

Statue of Liberty

Statue of Liberty, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

During our recent visits to Los Angeles to clean out the stuff from my old place, I found an old desktop computer that I hadn't booted up since early 2006 or so. On it were some scans of some negatives I shot a few years ago, when I was primarily shooting film. I still shoot with film cameras, though not nearly as much as I used to since digital is more convenient for me on my frequent travels. However, I do love using film and looking at old images I've created help me remember just how much.

This image of the New York New York Casino was shot in 2003 in Las Vegas with a Holga. Holgas are medium-format, cheap plastic cameras with plastic lenses that yield images with soft focus, vignetting, and light leaks. They're really fun for creating artistic, sometimes weird images.

The image was scanned as a negative so it looks backwards, but I didn't bother reversing it. I think it looks a little more surreal this way.

Comic-Con Update

Robert Pattinson, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

I used to go to the San Diego Comic Con every year. I started going in 1993, when the convention (and the convention center) were much smaller. Since then, it has expanded quite a bit, to include movie and television promotions and huge booths, not just from the usual suspects like DC Comics, but other media like the Sci-Fi channel and Sony.

This year, I found myself with only one day to devote to the convention, so I headed down on Thursday. My main reason for being there was to photograph the cast of Twilight, particularly Kristen Stewart, for an article for Premiere. I met up with my awesome journalist colleague Pamela Chelin and joined her for a roundtable interview session with the cast, a short photo session outside the interview room, and their panel to discuss the movie. As I was mainly there to capture the leads, Kristen Stewart (photo also included in the article on Kristen at Premiere) and Robert Pattinson (pictured above), and had limited time, I didn't capture all of the cast, but there are a few more candids and some shots of the panel in my Twilight set at Flickr.

More Comic-Con fun, nerdy goodness, and links to good-looking people after the jump!

General anesthesia for fun and profit

Anyone following me on Twitter will know that I went to the hospital this morning for some minor outpatient surgery. It wasn't a major procedure, but invasive enough that they had to give me general anesthesia. I was actually more nervous about the anesthesia than the surgery itself, because I had never undergone general before. I got some reassurances from a couple of friends who had had it before, but I was still a bit nervous. The staff at the hospital was quite nice and understanding and they did a great job reassuring me and keeping me as calm as possible, given the circumstances.

The actual experience was really easy. They gave me an IV, I looked up at the ceiling, and I was out. The next thing I remember is coughing my way into consciousness as they wheeled me into recovery. Within a few minutes, I was alert, and less than an hour after I woke up, I was discharged. (Of course, I made sure my husband sent an update to Twitter once I was in recovery. What good geek wouldn't?)

I'm home now, and I don't feel the least bit groggy or sluggish, just kind of sore in the surgery area (which is, of course, to be expected).

So, all is well. Thanks to my friends for the good thoughts via text, email, and Twitter! And thanks to Twitter for not giving us the fail-whale this morning.

Gama-Go shirt at Comic-Con

Gama-Go shirt, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

I was in San Diego for the first day of Comic-Con on Thursday and was walking around with my writer friend Pamela as we waited for our scheduled meetings. We stopped by the Gama-Go booth because I love their stuff and buy my husband a LOT of their t-shirts. One of the staff at the booth was wearing this old Gama-Go design, which he said was discontinued because people kept mistaking the Katakana lettering for Hebrew.

We sent it on over to Heeb Magazine, who collects such items for their Jewish esoterica archives (or perhaps just likes free t-shirts).

More photos from Comic-Con in my Comic-Con set at Flickr. (And a full Comic-Con report coming soon.)

Gingerbread butterscotch cookies

Butterscotch & ginger cookies, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

As part of my little experiment of returning to the kitchen and cooking at home, I baked some cookies for a friend's birthday recently. I had tried a similar cookie at a local bakery and thought I'd make them, since I really, really like gingerbread and the butterscotch flavor offsets the spiciness of the ginger and clove so well. I baked them a few minutes too long, because after years of not baking I forget that you should take cookies out of the oven when they look not-quite-done so that they stay chewy. They were a little crispier than I would have liked, but they were very tasty. Recipe after the jump.

Into the belly of the beast

As you know, Thursday was my last day at IBM Lotus. I will be posting a bit more detail about my new company and the services we offer in a few days, but first, I have to tell you about what I did on Thursday night.

I was at dinner a few weeks ago with Mary Jo Foley and she mentioned that she was going to be a judge at a competition for technical speakers called "Speaker Idol". Due to my experience speaking at Lotusphere and attending similar speaking competitions, she thought I'd be a great addition to the judging panel, so I agreed to do it. The event in question? A Microsoft .Net Developers Group meeting. Inside a Microsoft building.

Eek!

I have to admit, I was a little nervous walking into a room full of .Net developers, but the organizers, attendees, speakers, and other judges couldn't have been more inviting and pleasant. The speakers were great and the judging was fun. Also, as it turns out, entering a Microsoft building as an ex-Lotus employee will not, in fact, cause one to burst into flames. Who knew?

Lest anyone think that I am running out Lotus/IBM's door straight into the open, willing arms of their main messaging and collaboration competitor, not to worry. I still plan on remaining independent for the foreseeable future. This being my own boss thing is pretty sweet.

Plus, I just officially migrated to a Mac. I'm pretty sure that's like Kryptonite to Microsoft people, right?

Photos of the new Mac after the jump.

Zeitgeist Films

Zeitgeist Mugs, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

Recently, I went to the offices of Zeitgeist Films with Jenni Miller of Premiere while she interviewed them for a piece about their 20 years as a filmmaking team and their retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. I was there to shoot photos of the two for the article. I only posted a couple - this one of the mugs that a friend of theirs made for them, and another of the two filmmakers, which are both featured in the article on premiere.com.

I am looking forward to doing some more work with Premiere, which I'll be doing next week as I cover one day of the San Diego Comic Con for them. Yes, it's a comic book convention (and one I've been to many, many times before), but there is quite a large film company presence there and there will be many filmmakers and actors there promoting their films. And I'll be there to take pictures of 'em doing it.

Ch-ch-changes

In the past couple of years, I've been through a series of changes both big and small - moving back to New York City, getting married, changing blogs. Today brings another in that series of changes, as it is my last day with IBM.

I'm both excited for what lies ahead and sad to leave such a wonderful group of colleagues. I've had the great fortune to work with some of the best and brightest within IBM and Lotus. I truly value the time I've spent at IBM/Lotus and am very thankful for the amazing colleagues and friends I've come to know during my time there. And I don't expect those relationships to change - though I'm leaving the company, I'm certainly not leaving the Lotus community.

My decision was not one I took lightly. For the past couple of years, I have often had thoughts of changing focus - taking some time to explore my interests outside of IT and explore new possibilities. I've been very fortunate that I've been able to explore two of my passions while working as an IBMer: travel and photography (and sometimes, a combination of the two). I've found, however, that I'd like to explore that creative side a bit more, so I'll be devoting more time to photography, and will be going back to school for photography and fine art.

But as I said, I won't be leaving the Lotus community. I've started my own consulting company, Sakura Consulting, and will be providing consulting services for an array of Lotus products. I'll also continue to speak at conferences and user groups. In fact, I'll be presenting at the UK Lotus User Group meeting in September.

I want to thank my manager and my colleagues and mentors that supported me as I made this difficult decision. I also want to thank all of the friends and colleagues I've met and worked with via the Lotus community over the years. I encourage you to keep in touch, whether it be by blogging, e-mail, Twitter, or just saying hi when we cross paths at a conference. I've got so many great memories of the people in the Lotus community, and I can't wait to see the new ones that are to come.

Raging water

Raging water, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

I have blogged a few photos that were taken using a Lensbaby before. As I mentioned in this post, the Lensbaby is a hybrid of a tilt-shift and a bellows lens that allows a photographer to create a selective focus effect. With a traditional tilt shift lens, you can create focus on your desired subject and have the other areas of the image out of focus, which makes the subject really pop out from the background. This is achieved by creating a very shallow depth of field.

What the Lensbaby does that's a little different is adds a blurry effect around the center area of focus. As you can see in this image, the flowers and foliage surrounding the water that I was focusing on look streaky, as if you took a watercolor brush and dragged it away from the subject. This effect happens when you focus the Lensbaby, which is done by pushing down on the bellows until your subject is in focus. The flexibility of the bellows also allows the photographer to concentrate their area of focus at any point in the image. So I could focus on the upper right corner, for example, and the rest of the image would have that streaky, soft-focus, watercolor look. I especially like to use this lens for high-contrast or difficult lighting situations, because the Lensbaby allows for some incredible ways to play with light and color.

On our last trip to Ireland, I used the Lensbaby much more than I did our traditional lenses, so I'll be posting some more on the artistic possibilities that can be achieved with this lens, which has a very attractive price point, just $150 USD for the Lensbaby 2.0 (my preferred version). It's a good way to take a step towards expanding your creative vision with your photography.

To really see the full effect in this image, it's best to view it larger. Bigger version posted after the jump.

A friendly horse

A friendly horse, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

I have been to Ireland a number of times and always love exploring there. It's a beautiful country and in case you couldn't tell from my name, I'm of Irish descent, so visiting Ireland has special resonance for me. So it was with great delight that in 2006 and 2007, I spoke at the Irish Lotus User Group meeting in Dublin, Ireland. In 2007, my husband (then boyfriend) and I brought his parents with us and had a little vacation before the conference. One of the places we visited was Inis Mór, one of the Aran Islands off the coast of Galway.

While we were exploring the island, we came upon this little horse, grazing in a field behind a stone fence. She was very friendly and interested in us, allowing people to pet her and sniffing at us with curiosity. She was much more reluctant, however, to let us get even a glimpse of her foal, who she was quite determined to protect. Two more pictures of the friendly yet overprotective mom are after the jump. You can barely see her foal hiding behind her in one of the images.