Onion rings had been around for many years before fast food restaurants embraced them, but A&W is generally credited with making them a fast food favorite during the 1960s. Before long, they began appearing on menus across America as an alternative to French fries.
For my fast food project, I chose Sonic’s onion rings.
That wasn’t by accident.
Unlike many fast food onion rings that arrive frozen and ready to fry, Sonic became known for making its onion rings from whole sweet onions. Their slightly sweet batter has become one of the chain’s signature recipes and has earned a loyal following over the years.
They made a good addition to my From Bag to Background project.
There is much more to see on my website, including my photography galleries, my blog, and my growing Motion page. Visit https://secondfocus.com
Yesterday marked the anniversary of the opening of the first Dairy Queen in Joliet, Illinois, on June 22, 1940.
Looking through my fast food project, I realized something.
I don’t have a single Dairy Queen photograph.
Considering the chain’s importance in the history of American fast food, that’s an oversight I need to correct. Dairy Queen helped introduce generations of Americans to soft serve ice cream and became one of the country’s most recognizable fast food chains.
Until I can photograph the real thing, I decided to start with the one thing that made Dairy Queen famous: a classic soft serve cone.
Dairy Queen has officially been added to my shooting list.
There is much more to see on my website, including my photography galleries, my blog, and my growing Motion page. Visit https://secondfocus.com
Like a number of these National Days, I could not get to it until it had already passed.
That didn’t stop Emily, my evolving AI muse and assistant.
By now you’ve probably met Celeste. She has appeared in several of our series, and when I mentioned National Turkey Lovers’ Day, she decided the best way to celebrate was to spend a little time with a live turkey.
That actually seemed like a much better idea.
Wild turkeys are native to North America, and Benjamin Franklin once suggested the turkey would have made a better national symbol than the bald eagle. Whether you agree with him or not, turkeys are far more interesting birds than most people realize.
Celeste certainly seemed to enjoy the encounter, and the turkey appeared perfectly content with all the attention.
The result became another short video for my growing Emily and Friends series.
There is much more to see on my website, including my photography galleries, my blog, and my growing Motion page. Visit https://secondfocus.com
Most people probably celebrated with sandwiches, potato salad, and a blanket in the park.
I celebrated by thinking about Berlin during the Weimar years.
For quite a while I have been fascinated by that remarkable period between the two World Wars. It was a time when fashion, nightlife, cabaret, and sexuality all seemed to be changing at once. Much of what we think of today as modern attitudes toward sex and self expression can trace at least some of its roots back to those years.
That fascination eventually led me to create a series of photographs inspired by the era. They were never intended to be historical recreations. Instead, I wanted to capture some of the atmosphere while giving it my own interpretation.
If you’ve followed my work for very long, you already know that I have a preference for what I call Pornochic. I’m far more interested in photographs that combine style, fashion, glamour, and sexuality than simply photographing people without their clothes. The Weimar period seemed like a natural fit for that approach.
So when International Picnic Day came along, this photograph immediately came to mind.
There is much more to see on my website, including my photography galleries, my blog, and my growing Motion page. Visit https://secondfocus.com
There seem to have been a lot of “National” and “International” food days lately, and I simply couldn’t keep up with all of them.
So here we are a few days late.
This photograph is one of the few in my fast food project where I left the food in its original container. Normally everything comes out of the packaging and onto a black background, but this one deserved an exception. The deep purple tray, the neat arrangement, and the bright colors of the salmon, tuna, shrimp, avocado, and pickled ginger are all part of what catches your eye in the grocery store.
To me, this is fast food in a different form. It is freshly prepared, packaged, refrigerated, and ready to grab on your way home for lunch or dinner. No drive through required.
Not all that long ago, finding sushi usually meant visiting a Japanese restaurant or a specialty market. Today it has become a common sight in grocery stores, where fresh rolls are made throughout the day and sold alongside sandwiches, salads, and other grab and go meals.
There is a lot more food to tempt you on my website, along with my other photography projects, my Motion page, and my blog, which is updated almost daily. Visit https://www.secondfocus.com
Roxanne, one of Emily’s AI friends and muses, stands on the studio set awaiting the start of a photography session. The behind the scenes view reveals the black seamless background, professional lighting equipment, and the working environment where many of the Emily and Friends photographs and videos are created.
Yesterday was World Tapas Day.
I was looking forward to photographing Roxanne with a table full of Spanish tapas. At least that was the plan.
Unfortunately, as anyone who spends much time working with AI knows, prompts occasionally get interpreted a little differently than intended.
Apparently Roxanne thought I had asked for topless instead of tapas.
By the time she arrived at the studio, the misunderstanding had become fairly obvious.
I explained that World Topless Day isn’t until August, but by then everyone agreed there wasn’t much point in changing anything.
Besides, it fit my Pornochic photography a lot better than a plate of olives and Manchego cheese.
The tapas can wait for another day.
In the meantime, I’d like you to meet Roxanne. She is one of Emily’s ever growing circle of AI friends and muses, and I suspect you’ll be seeing quite a bit more of her in the months ahead.
Original Kodachrome color transparency featuring glamour model Tonisha Mills in a studio lingerie portrait. The professionally photographed image captures a style of glamour photography popular during the 1990s, balancing provocative posing with carefully controlled composition and lighting. The original slide retains handwritten filing notations and Kodak processing marks, adding to its value as a photographic collectible.
One of the things I enjoy most about collecting photographs is finding original pieces that represent a particular moment in the history of photography. This Kodachrome transparency of model Tonisha Mills is one of those photographs.
Unlike many vintage photographs that circulate today as digital scans or magazine reproductions, this is the original 35mm color transparency. It still carries its Kodak processing marks along with the handwritten filing numbers that were added when it became part of a photographer’s or studio’s working archive.
Tonisha Mills was one of the best known models to appear in men’s magazines during the 1990s, a period when this style of photography was changing. As magazines became more competitive, photographers gradually moved beyond the traditional pin up style that had dominated earlier decades.
That’s what first caught my attention about this slide.
When I first looked at it, I immediately thought about where it fit in that progression. By the 1990s, photographs revealing what lay between a model’s legs were becoming increasingly common, but they were still usually presented with some restraint. Looking back now, this transparency represents an interesting point in the evolution of men’s magazine photography before completely explicit images became commonplace.
The Kodachrome film adds another layer of interest. By the time this photograph was made, digital photography was beginning to appear on the horizon, but professional photographers were still relying heavily on color transparencies for publication and reproduction. Looking at this original slide on a light table is much the same experience the photographer, editor, or magazine art director would have had when deciding whether it was the image they wanted.
That connection to the photographic process is one of the reasons I enjoy collecting original transparencies. They are more than just pictures. They are the original photographs that passed through the hands of the people who created and published them.
If you enjoy discovering unusual pieces of photographic history, take a look through my From My Collections gallery. While you’re there, you’ll also find my editorial, aviation, food, fashion, and fine art photography, my growing Motionpage, and regularly updated Blog. Everything is available at https://www.secondfocus.com
An original 35mm color transparency mounted in a cardboard slide mount depicting an unidentified nude glamour model posed on a Louis XV-style stool in a professional studio setting. Based on the hairstyle, lighting style, and color transparency format, the image likely dates from the 1950s to early 1960s. The slide is unmarked, with no photographer, publisher, or model identification, making it an interesting example of mid-century American glamour photography and photographic presentation.
I bought this 35mm color slide simply because it interested me.
It came mounted in an ordinary cardboard slide carrier with absolutely no identifying information. There is no photographer’s name, no date, no studio stamp, no model identification, and not even a handwritten note to suggest where it came from.
What remains is the photograph itself.
The image shows an unidentified blonde model seated on what appears to be a Louis XV-style stool in a carefully lit studio. The hairstyle, lighting, and the fact that it is a color transparency all suggest it was probably photographed sometime during the 1950s or early 1960s, although without any documentation that can only be an educated guess.
One of the things that attracted me is that it represents a period when glamour photography was changing. Earlier artistic nudes were often presented in black and white, while color transparency film was becoming practical enough for professional photographers and serious amateurs willing to invest in it. Every exposure had to count. There was no instant review, no deleting mistakes, and no Photoshop waiting at the end of the process.
We’ll probably never know whether this was made by a commercial glamour photographer, a camera club member, or simply someone who enjoyed creating carefully crafted studio photographs.
Photography has produced millions, perhaps even billions, of images over the years, but surprisingly few remain connected to the people who created them. Slides become separated from their boxes, handwritten notes disappear, studios close, and estates are dispersed. Eventually an image survives while everything that once explained it is gone.
This transparency is one of those survivors.
If you enjoy discovering unusual pieces of photographic history, take a look through my FromMyCollections gallery. While you’re there, you’ll also find my editorial, aviation, food, fashion, and fine art photography, my growing Motion page, and regularly updated Blog. Everything is available at https://www.secondfocus.com
I had every intention of posting this last night. However I was… celebrating.
Fortunately, someone remembered to keep the camera rolling.
The scene looked something like this. A long chrome-and-glass bar, glasses of bourbon lined up from one end to the other, and what appeared to be an endless row of identical redheads in little black dresses. They all seemed perfectly content to sit there, sip their bourbon, and look directly at the camera.
I have no explanation for why they all looked exactly alike.
It may have been the bourbon.
The video is only about twelve seconds long, but I thought it deserved a little extra time, so I looped it a few times. If you’re going to celebrate National Bourbon Day, you might as well do it properly.
Emily and her ever-growing circle of AI Muses have once again demonstrated that reality is optional.
If you’d like to see more of my photography, explore my Motion page, and read the stories behind many of these projects, you’ll find it all at SecondFocus.com.
Long before fast food chains covered every freeway exit, Bob’s Big Boy helped define what the American family restaurant could be. When Bob Wian introduced the original double-decker Big Boy hamburger in Glendale, California, in 1937, it became one of the first signature burgers that people would travel specifically to eat. The combination of car culture, diners, drive-ins, and roadside architecture made Big Boy an icon of postwar America.
The smiling Big Boy statue carrying his oversized hamburger became just as recognizable as the restaurant itself. Today, original fiberglass statues have become highly sought-after collectibles, with surviving examples often selling for thousands of dollars. They represent much more than a restaurant chain. They remind people of family dinners, road trips, classic cars, and an era when the neighborhood diner was often the center of the community.
I photographed this statue in the window of an antique store in Julian, California. Between the reflections in the glass and the familiar smile, it seemed to capture exactly what nostalgia looks like. Sometimes an old restaurant mascot can tell a bigger story than the meal it was created to advertise.
There is much more to see on my website, including my food photography, aviation, editorial work, new Motion page, and my regularly updated blog. Visit SecondFocus.com
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