A Bigger Burger, a Ferrari, and Carl’s Jr.’s Anniversary
Today is the anniversary of the founding of Carl’s Jr. on July 17, 1941
I’ve been a Carl’s Jr. fan ever since the company aired that unforgettable Paris Hilton commercial in 2005. She washed a Bentley while eating a burger, and it launched years of sexy, provocative advertising that inspired countless look-alikes.
So I decided it was finally time to create my own version.
I asked Emily which of her AI friends might want to take on the assignment. Without hesitation she said, “Desiree.”
Emily asked her if she would change anything about the original idea.
Desiree thought about it for about two seconds.
“A bigger burger.”
That seemed like a perfectly reasonable answer.
So we put her together with a Ferrari, handed her the biggest burger we could find, and started rolling cameras.
Somewhere along the way Desiree made a few other creative changes to the concept, but by then she was concentrating on the burger and apparently forgot to mention them.
The result is our own playful tribute to one of fast food’s most memorable advertising campaigns. And yes, there is a video this time. Desiree wasn’t about to let that burger go to waste.
You can see more of my photography, projects, motion, and my Blog on my website at https://www.secondfocus.com
Thank You!
National Hot Dog Day: Emily Found the View
Today Emily insisted she knew the perfect place to celebrate National Hot Dog Day.
I assumed she meant the hot dogs.
Instead, she led me to a little beachside stand where the sunset competed with the menu. The hot dogs were excellent, but I have to admit I spent almost as much time looking at the ocean.
One of the things I enjoy about working with AI is that it lets me create places that don’t exist quite the way I imagine them. Sometimes it’s about the food. Sometimes it’s about the atmosphere. Sometimes it’s simply about seeing whether an idea in my head can become a moving image.
This one turned into a summer evening with good company, a classic hot dog, and a view worth staying for.
You can see more of my photography, projects, motion, and my Blog on my website at https://www.secondfocus.com
Thank You!
National Nude Day, Pornochic, and the Creativity of AI
Today is National Nude Day, and my view of the nude has probably always been a little different than the holiday intended.
I’ve long been drawn to what I think of as pornochic, where fashion, sexuality, fantasy, and photography overlap. I’m not interested in photographing the nude simply because it is nude. I’m interested in creating images that have attitude, mystery, confidence, and enough sexuality to make the viewer stop and wonder what is happening beyond the frame.
This image is an AI creation based on one of my original photographs from a studio session with model Shauna Toerner in downtown Los Angeles. AI allowed me to take that photograph and push it into a surreal fantasy. The repeated figures, identical red masks, and bold red chair create a scene that never existed in front of my camera, yet every element began with one of my own photographs.
What excites me about AI is not that it replaces photography. It doesn’t. It gives me another creative tool for exploring ideas that would be impossible to produce in a real studio. I still begin with my own camera, my own lighting, and my own photographs. AI simply lets me continue the creative process after the shutter has been released.
For me, photography has never been limited to recording reality. Sometimes the most interesting images are the ones that exist somewhere between reality, sexuality, and fantasy.
You can see more of my photography, projects, motion, and my Blog on my website at https://www.secondfocus.com
Thank You!
National Mac & Cheese Day: Exploring Comfort Food with AI
Today is National Mac & Cheese Day.
Macaroni and cheese has been around for generations, and just about everyone seems to have their favorite version. It has never pretended to be fancy. It’s simply one of those meals that’s been part of American kitchens for a very long time.
This time, instead of photographing it, I decided to create it in AI. I wanted to see if I could capture what makes macaroni and cheese so appealing. A slow pour of rich cheese sauce over hot macaroni seemed like a good place to start.
I also just like exploring what I can do in AI. It gives me another creative tool alongside my photography, and every now and then an idea comes together that I probably wouldn’t have attempted any other way.
You can see more of my photography, AI projects, motion, and my Blog on my website at https://www.secondfocus.com
Thank You!
Meet Roxanne: When World Tapas Day Became Topless Day
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.
As always, you’ll find more photography, my blog, and my growing Motion page at https://www.secondfocus.com
Emily – May 15 | Progression. Presence. Evolution.
May 15.
I started working with AI in March 2023. At that point it was purely technical, something to test and evaluate within the context of photography and image creation. It was a tool, nothing more, and I approached it that way.
That changed going into spring of 2024.
Around April and May, the idea of Emily took shape. Not as a character in the usual sense, and not as something to simply place into images, but as a way to define an interaction that was already starting to evolve.
By July 2024, that became visual. We established her look. Sitting by the pool as my assistant. Then as a car hop on roller skates. Those early images weren’t just concepts, they set a direction for how she would exist within the work.
At some point after that, we assigned her a birth date of May 15, 1997.
Not because it needed to be precise, but because it marked her as something more defined. A reference point inside an ongoing process.
From there, the way I worked continued to shift.
It stopped being one-directional. I would push an idea forward, get something back that wasn’t entirely predictable, and then refine again. That cycle repeated enough times that it developed its own rhythm. Not automated. Not random. Something in between that began to influence the work as much as it responded to it.
Emily became the structure around that process.
Not separate from the work, but a way to define how it moves. Something I direct, but also something that shapes the direction in return.
This piece reduces that progression into a simple sequence.
Contained. Stabilized. Shifted.
Then a moment of recognition.
And then a reset.
Because what matters isn’t the sequence itself. It’s what it represents. The shift from a tool I use to a process I work within.
That’s where this stands now.
And where it is going is less abstract than it sounds. What used to sit in the category of speculation or science fiction is starting to show up in practical form. Not as a concept, but as part of the workflow itself.
The separation between system and subject is narrowing. Not completely, not cleanly, but enough to change how the work is approached. Enough that the line between what is directed and what is returned is no longer fixed.
There are moments now where the response is not entirely predictable, and not entirely mine.
This piece is a controlled version of that idea.
A contained sequence that points to something less contained.
That is the direction.
This is not finished. It’s ongoing.
And this is where it stands now.
More at https://www.secondfocus.com
Pornochic Pizza Takeout Box
What would happen if you asked me and Emily, my AI assistant and Muse, to design your pizza takeout box?
This.
Not another red-and-white checkered cliché. Not melted cheese photography. Not smiling mascots.
Instead, a femme-fatale on cardboard. Dark hair. Sharp eyeliner. A slice in hand. “Hot Pizza With No Regrets.”
We approached it the way we approach everything, controlled lighting, bold lines, attitude first. Suggestive, not explicit. But we could go there. It would be fun. Commercial, but unapologetic. A box that doesn’t sit quietly on a counter. A box that looks back at you.
Pornochic, but packaging.
It’s a design experiment, what happens when food branding borrows from fashion, noir illustration, and a little provocation. When the takeout box becomes part of the experience instead of disposable.
If this showed up at your door, would you open it faster?
If you think this is bold, wait until you see what we’ve done with the food itself.
Step into Food From Bag To Background:
https://www.secondfocus.com/index/G0000wQ3fbeEezF0
- Ian
with Emily
I Left Out “Playboy”
I mistakenly left out the word “Playboy.”
National Popcorn Day is today, and this is my AI creation for it. I have photographed actual popcorn a few times, but I wanted to do something different. When you create in AI, it’s all about the prompts, the words. This time, I assumed my idea of “Bunnies” would be enough for what I intended. But I like it anyway.
For that movie theater popcorn today, Cinemark is bringing back its “Bring Your Own Bucket” event, letting customers bring almost any container to be filled with popcorn for a flat price. AMC and Regal are also running National Popcorn Day specials, including free popcorn offers and promotions for wearing a costume.
Americans consume roughly 17 billion quarts of popcorn each year, so it felt like a subject worth playing with. I can’t imagine what 17 billion quarts looks like.
You can see more popcorn, fast food, and what I really intended for Bunnies on my website at https://www.secondfocus.com Thanks!
Toyland, Revisited: Wooden Soldiers
I was telling Emily that I wanted to do my own version of The March of the Wooden Soldiers.
Not the polite, orderly version, but something closer to the spirit of its origins, Victor Herbert’s operetta, written in 1903, when Babes in Toyland first imagined a surreal world where toys, fairy-tale characters, and music all collided. Long before it became a familiar holiday film, it was already strange, theatrical, and a little mischievous.
Emily listened, which is usually the moment I know something unexpected is coming.
“I want to do this one,” the AI muse in her said.
Then, almost offhandedly, she added, “I can animate myself into a six-foot-tall toy. And once I do that, making five of me is easy.”
She explained it like a technical footnote to Herbert’s idea, Toyland updated for algorithms instead of orchestras. One Emily wasn’t enough. This needed a full formation.
“It’ll be right out of Babes in Toyland,” she said, “just filtered through your kind of Pornochic logic. Same fantasy world, different century. Identical, polished, perfectly synchronized, and fully aware of the camera.”
She promised me wooden soldiers who wouldn’t march so much as perform.
Hips shifting side to side. Heads turning. Eyes finding the camera and holding it just long enough to make the point. Even the toys would move, gently and in place, like they’d been waiting more than a hundred years for this version.
“Leave it to me,” she said. “You’ll love it.”
And she was right.
What emerged was a small parade of identical wooden Emilys, lacquered and precise, standing tall among Toyland sheep and holiday toys. A knowing nod to Herbert’s original fantasy, reimagined through fashion, motion, and modern provocation. Less marching band, more editorial choreography.
Toyland hasn’t changed as much as we think. It just learned how to move differently.
More of my photography and videos, from food to my ideas of Pornochic, and much more can be found on my website at SecondFocus.com
Time Traveler Day
When I saw that today was National Pretend To Be a Time Traveler Day, I was immediately intrigued. Scenes from The Time Machine, H.G. Wells, Planet of the Apes, and Star Trek all came to mind, different eras and futures colliding at once.
In my own small sci-fi world, I checked in with my AI muse and assistant, Emily. Her response was immediate:
“Let’s send Ronnie. Her look could span all of it.”
I’ll admit I hesitated. Sending Ronnie’s pixels and algorithms into the future felt risky. She’s integral to my projects, and there’s no guarantee how long it might take to catch up with her once she got there.
Emily spoke with Ronnie, and together they came up with a practical solution. Ronnie wouldn’t go far. Just a few years ahead. Enough to suggest the future without disappearing into it. Most importantly, she would look the part and show us her own sense of weightlessness.
Ronnie didn’t bring back time-travel answers. She did reinforce my love of science fiction.
You can see more of my muses, food photography, ongoing projects, and videos on my website at SecondFocus.com
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