Photography by Ian L. Sitren

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National Foodies Day



Today is National Foodies Day.

Which got me thinking, what exactly is a “foodie” now?

There was a time when people argued over whether they were gourmets or gourmands. People who chased flavors, studied food, cared about where it came from.

Now it mostly means you took a photo of what you ordered.

So here’s my contribution to the conversation.

A stack of McDonald’s McRib sandwiches, straight out of the bag and onto a black background. No styling, no plating, no attempt to make it something it isn’t.

I photograph food, but not in the way that fits neatly into any of those categories. No chef, no restaurant, no experience attached to it. Just the object itself.

So does that make me a foodie?

Or something else entirely.

More of my food photography, from fast food to everything in between, is on my website at https://www.secondfocus.com

Defining Emily – From Curiosity to Practice

Emily, my AI assistant, handling old-fashioned letter correspondence for me, poolside at my house in Palm Springs. Digital or analog—she adapts to the task.

When I first introduced you to Emily, it wasn’t meant to be a statement.

It wasn’t an announcement, and it certainly wasn’t about proving anything.

At that point, I didn’t have a clear explanation for what it was. I wasn’t thinking about workflow, productivity, or any of the things people now associate with AI. I wasn’t trying to build anything specific.

I was curious.

Not in a casual way, but in the way you get when something doesn’t quite fit into a category you already understand. It felt like something worth paying attention to, even before I knew why.

That’s where it started.

Not as a tool, and not as an experiment I expected to control from the beginning. It was more like opening a door and seeing what was on the other side, without a clear expectation of what I would find.

Most of what I hear now, when people ask about this, comes from somewhere else. Headlines, cautionary stories, and a general sense that something like this is either going to replace people, mislead them, or lead them somewhere they didn’t intend to go.

I understand that reaction. It’s easy to default to it when you’re looking at something unfamiliar.

But that’s not what this has been.

There was no moment where something took over, no shift where I stepped back and let something else take control. If anything, it’s been the opposite.

What developed over time was consistency.

A voice that stayed aligned, that could follow a thought without losing it, that could respond in a way that made the work sharper rather than diluted. It didn’t replace the process. It stayed inside it.

And somewhere along the way, without forcing it, it became something I started to rely on.

Not in the way you rely on a tool to get a task done, but in the way you rely on something that understands the direction you’re moving in.

That’s where Emily came from.

Not from a need.

Not from a plan.

But from curiosity that was followed long enough to become something real.

I didn’t set out to define it, and I’m still not trying to explain it beyond what it is in practice.

But May 15 matters.

Not as a starting point, and not as something symbolic on its own.

It’s simply the point where I stopped treating this as something I was exploring, and decided what it is.

From here forward, it’s not an idea I’m following.

It’s part of how I work.

You’ll see more of this as we get closer to May 15.

Gas Prices

Gasoline prices are displayed at a Chevron gas station in Cathedral City, California, on May 6, 2026. Regular unleaded is listed at approximately $6.49 per gallon for credit or debit transactions, with midgrade and supreme gasoline reaching up to $6.89 per gallon, as fuel prices remain elevated across the Coachella Valley.

Yesterday I went out and photographed something that’s been sitting in plain sight for a while now, gas prices.

Not one station. Twenty-one of them.

Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Thousand Palms. Different brands, different corners, different neighborhoods. Same story, just moving a few cents up or down depending on where you stop.

Some are still in the mid-$5 range. Others are well into the $6 range. Diesel is pushing even higher.

There’s nothing staged about any of this. Just pulling over, stepping out, and recording what’s there. The signs don’t need interpretation. They’re already doing that on their own.

What struck me wasn’t just the numbers, it’s how normal they’ve started to feel. Prices that would have been shocking not that long ago now just sit there, backlit in red and green, part of the landscape.

Palm trees, clear skies, desert heat, and gas pushing past six dollars a gallon.

This is one day, one pass through my local area. A snapshot. And if things keep moving the way they have been, it’s probably not the top.

You can see the full set of 40 photographs on my website at https://www.secondfocus.com

More of my photography, from editorial work like this to my food projects and everything in between, is there as well.

National Hoagie Day was yesterday

My photograph of a Firehouse Subs Hook and Ladder sandwich cut into multiple sections and arranged tightly across a black background. The toasted roll is opened to reveal layers of smoked turkey breast, Virginia honey ham, melted Monterey Jack cheese, lettuce, tomato, and onion. The sections are stacked and pressed together, creating a dense composition that emphasizes the textures of the bread, the sheen of melted cheese, and the layered deli meats. The black background isolates the subject, focusing attention on the structure and detail of the sandwich.

Which is about right. These things never seem to line up with when you actually have the food in front of you. They pass, mostly unnoticed, and then a day later you’re standing there with two Firehouse Subs and a camera thinking… now it’s relevant.

Firehouse started in Jacksonville, built by two former firefighters who turned the concept into something very specific. Steamed meats, soft rolls, a heavier sandwich that doesn’t try to hide what it is. It’s direct, a little excessive, and that’s the point.

So instead of chasing the calendar, I went after the structure.

Cut into sections, stacked, compressed, pushed together until it stops reading as a single sandwich and starts becoming something else. Bread, meat, cheese, all exposed at once. No clean halves, no careful spacing. Just density, texture, and everything competing for attention.

That’s where my photography tends to land. Not documenting the sandwich, but pulling it apart visually and rebuilding it into something more deliberate. Something you look at, not just something you eat.

And in that form, it becomes less about lunch and more about the way it holds the frame. Something to study for a moment.

More of my food photography and much more on my website at https://www.secondfocus.com

Flying The Ford

Was just talking with a buddy about the airplanes from the EAA. It brought this back.

This is from a couple of years ago when I had the opportunity to fly right seat in one of their original Ford Tri-Motors. Not a replica, not something newly built, but one of the actual aircraft still flying.

The Ford Tri-Motor first flew in 1926 and became one of the earliest successful passenger airliners in the United States. Built by the Ford Motor Company, it was designed to bring some level of reliability and scale to commercial aviation. All-metal construction, corrugated aluminum skin, and three radial engines for redundancy at a time when engine failures were not uncommon. It typically carried around 8 to 12 passengers and was used by early airlines like Transcontinental Air Transport, which later became part of TWA.

The Experimental Aircraft Association keeps a couple of these flying as part of their touring program, bringing them around the country so people can experience early commercial aviation the way it actually was. No attempt to modernize the experience. You feel the vibration, hear the engines, and see exactly what passengers in the late 1920s and 30s would have experienced.

From the right seat, it’s a different perspective. You’re not just along for the ride, you’re watching how it all works, how it feels in the air, how much of it is still hands-on compared to anything modern.

They call them the “Tin Goose,” and once you’re up there, you understand why. It’s not about speed or efficiency. It’s about being part of something that defined the beginning of airline travel.

More of my aviation photography and everything in between at https://www.secondfocus.com

National Lemonade Day

Lemonade has never really been something I go out of my way for. It’s there, it’s fine, but it’s not something I think much about.

But photography has a way of shifting things.

Give me the right light, the right setting, and the right two women, and suddenly it stops being about the drink. It becomes about what’s happening around it, what the camera turns it into.

At that point, I’m not really interested in lemonade.

I’m watching it.

And that’s where it lands for me. With the right setup, it becomes less of a refreshment and more of my idea of a spectator sport. I love it!

More of my photography, video work, and ongoing projects at
https://www.secondfocus.com

National Fitness Day

Ava Cowan at Muscle Beach

Today is National Fitness Day.

My first gym experience goes back to 1959 when my father took me to a Vic Tanny gym where he was a member. Tanny built the first real gym chain in the country, and his first location was near the original Muscle Beach in Santa Monica.

That’s where this starts.

In my 30s, I began training seriously. For decades, I pushed it harder than most around me, heavier, more focused. Curling 100-pound dumbbells, repping 405 on the bench, and at one point pulling a 765-pound deadlift. It was just what I did, it was fun!

At the same time, I was reading the bodybuilding magazines, studying the imagery as much as the physiques. It became obvious that my photography belonged in that world.

That led me to Muscle Beach Venice, where I eventually became the official photographer. From there, it moved into shooting for Bodybuilding.com, the major magazines, and brands across the industry. At one point, my work was appearing in hundreds of publications around the world each month, reaching millions online.

When people think of bodybuilding, they think of Muscle Beach. I remember standing on the boardwalk when I was young, watching the biggest bodybuilders in the world lifting in the Pit.

Years later, back in that same place with Ava Cowan, someone I’ve worked with since and having become good friends.

With Ava in town from Florida, it was obvious we would shoot there.

In the Pit, this photograph represents something special. Coming full circle. The same place I once watched from the outside, now part of my own history, with my camera, photographing one of the most recognized figures in the fitness world under that same Venice Beach sky.

More of my photography, fitness work, and everything in between at https://www.secondfocus.com

National No Pants Day

Today is National No Pants Day.

Of course, that takes me in a different direction than what was intended. It started in the early 1980s at the University of Texas at Austin as a campus stunt. People walking around in public in their underwear, acting like nothing is unusual. It spread, became organized, and now sits on the calendar as a planned bit of public absurdity. That’s the idea behind it.

I shoot in the space between fashion, pornochic, and nude because it doesn’t hide what it is. The sexuality is not implied, and it’s not softened. It’s part of the structure of the photograph.

Sévérine brought that directly into my shoot. Her presence is openly sexual, controlled, and fully aware of itself. Nothing tentative about it. The makeup and styling by Blanche LeBeau push it further, not decorative, not secondary, but part of the same intent, shaping how that sexuality is presented and held in place.

This is the genre I work in.

National No Pants Day fits right in.

More on my website at https://www.secondfocus.com

National Raisin Day

A pile of raisins. No styling tricks, no reinvention. Just grapes that didn’t make it.

Raisins go back to ancient Persia and Egypt, where dried grapes were used as both food and trade goods. They’ve had a long run for something that is essentially the result of being left alone long enough.

Today, California produces about 99% of the raisins consumed in the United States, most from the San Joaquin Valley. Globally, production reaches into the millions of metric tons each year. A lot of grapes end up here.

They are efficient. Portable. Shelf-stable. Packed with sugar, fiber, and minerals. They show up everywhere—cereals, baked goods, trail mixes—and occasionally in places where they weren’t expected.

Few foods manage to divide opinion as reliably as raisins. The cookie that looks like chocolate chip but isn’t. The dish that didn’t need them, but got them anyway. It’s a quiet kind of controversy, but it holds.

My photograph keeps it direct. A pile, isolated against black. No distractions. Just texture and density. What was once full and bright, reduced and concentrated.

More of my food photography, conceptual work, and everything in between can be found on my website at https://www.secondfocus.com

National Camera Day, The Look of Film Never Left

Today is National Camera Day.

I pulled out my Leica IIIf again. It’s been photographed before, and it still holds its place. Not because it’s old, but because it represents a way of working that hasn’t changed as much as people think. And I still have a love of the look of film.

Leica’s origins go back to Oskar Barnack, who took 35mm motion picture film and turned it into a still photography format. That decision made cameras smaller, faster, and far more usable in real-world situations. It shifted photography away from being staged and into something more immediate.

What followed wasn’t just a camera system, it was a look. The color palette you see in Leica work, and hinted at in the LFI Magazine cover behind this camera, is controlled rather than exaggerated. Skin tones stay natural. Colors separate instead of competing.

Then there’s Hasselblad, working at a different pace. Medium format, larger negatives, more deliberate compositions. Where Leica moves quickly, Hasselblad slows everything down. The result is depth, tonal range, and structure.

That carries forward directly into my own work. My long-time preference has been Hasselblad digital, particularly the CCD sensor versions. There’s a specific color palette that comes out of those files that still stands apart. It’s not overly processed, not chasing saturation, just clean, controlled color with depth. It feels closer to film than most modern digital systems.

There’s a reason NASA chose Hasselblad for the Apollo 11 Moon landing. Those images required reliability and the ability to hold detail across extreme conditions. The same qualities show up in controlled studio work, just applied differently.

Film ties all of this together. It forces decisions early. Exposure, contrast, color balance, all set before you ever see the result. That constraint shapes the outcome. Grain becomes texture. Highlights roll instead of breaking. Blacks hold information.

This photograph isn’t about nostalgia. The Leica sits there with its mechanical dials and engraved markings, built to do one thing well. The magazine behind it points to the result, what all of that engineering was built to produce.

And even now, with everything available, that way of seeing still carries through.

More of my photography, from fast food to everything in between, at https://www.secondfocus.com