Kathleen McGivney

Grand Opening of the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop

Over the weekend, Atom and I had the pleasure of documenting the grand opening of the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop. We've been going to the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck for a couple of years, and not only are their treats delicious, but they are really freakin' nice people (and they love unicorns). We like them so much that I arranged for them to cater Atom's birthday party last month. We were, of course, excited when they announced that they'd be opening a shop in the East Village, so we headed over there on Saturday to photograph and shoot video of the opening ceremonies.

And quite a ceremony it was! There was a sassy drag queen keeping the crowd entertained as they waited for the doors to open. There was a contrabassoon band playing outside the shop. And to top it off, the ever-so-holy Father Anthony Bourdain gave a benediction to open the shop. (See Atom's photoblog for some additional photos of the celebration and my video of the benediction and opening remarks).

You can get more info and photos at GrubStreet NY and The Village Voice, and a discussion at Towleroad.

Art imitating life

My husband as art, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

Last week, my husband, my partners in Hanne Apparel, and a few of our muses went to GMHC's third annual Fashion Forward event. This was our second year attending and sponsoring, and we had a fantastic time! One of the highlights this year for us were the fashion students walking around the party sketching the attendees. We bought a couple of the sketches - one of my daughter, and another one of an anonymous fabulous fashionista, but missed out on this one during the event. Fortunately, my husband is fairly recognizable, and one of the event organizers saw this sketch of him after the event and sent it to us. I love it! I especially love how the artist captured his favorite new red shoes.

I'll be back to my semi-regular schedule of posting recipes, travel photos, and the occasional technology rant shortly. In the meantime, if you're in the NYC area, we're looking for some more authors at the NYC Metblog, so if you want to write about NYC, post a comment over there and let us know!

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.

Brooklyn Botanical Garden

Japanese Garden, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

The Brooklyn Botanical Garden is a wonderful oasis in New York City. My favorite thing about the BBG is that it has a large Japanese garden, which contains a large number of cherry trees. Cherry blossoms are one of my favorite things, both for their aesthetics and their symbolism. Each year, the Brooklyn Botanical Garden celebrates the Sakura Matsuri, or Cherry Blossom Festival. It is a huge, weekend-long event with Japanese art, performances and music. We love to go there to see the cherry blossoms in bloom and enjoy the festivities.

This image was captured at last year's Sakura Matsuri with a Leica D-Lux 3. More images from last year's festival can be found in my Sakura Matsuri set.