National Cupcake Lovers Day and Six Birthday Cupcakes
Today has been National Cupcake Lovers Day.
Notice it isn’t National Cupcake Day. It is National Cupcake Lovers Day, making it just as much about the people who enjoy cupcakes as the cupcakes themselves.
For this one, I made a slight departure from my usual Food From Bag To Background approach.
Instead of removing the cupcakes from their packaging, I photographed them exactly as they came from the grocery store in their clear plastic container. Sometimes the packaging is part of the story.
The cupcake has been around for more than 200 years. Early recipes appeared in American cookbooks in the late 1700s and early 1800s, and by the mid-19th century the name “cupcake” had become common. Some historians believe the name came from cakes baked in individual cups, while others point to recipes that measured ingredients by the cup rather than by weight.
These Birthday Cupcakes caught my attention because of their bright blue and white frosting and colorful sprinkles. I thought they would photograph really nicely.
To see more of my completed food photographs, along with my aviation, fitness, fashion, and other photography projects, please visit my website at https://www.secondfocus.com. Thanks!
National Roast Beef Day and Arby’s Original Idea
Today has been National Roast Beef Day.
I picked Arby’s for this one because my primary food project has focused on fast food.
Arby’s is somewhat unique in the fast-food world because the chain was built around the roast beef sandwich. While many major fast-food chains became known for hamburgers, fried chicken, tacos, or pizza, Arby’s made thinly sliced roast beef its signature item.
The chain was founded in 1964 by brothers Forrest and Leroy Raffel. At the time, most fast-food restaurants were competing in the hamburger business. The Raffel brothers decided to go in a different direction and built their restaurant around roast beef sandwiches instead.
For this photograph, I used two Arby’s Half Pound Roast Beef sandwiches. The reason there are two is simple. Arby’s was offering a buy one, get one free promotion for National Roast Beef Day.
Working on my fast food project has also made me pay attention to fast-food apps and promotions. Many chains offer discounts tied to food holidays and loyalty programs. If you use them regularly, the savings can be significant.
These two sandwiches were removed from their wrappers and photographed against a black background for my Food From Bag To Background series.
To see more of my completed food photographs along with my other photography projects, please visit my website at https://www.secondfocus.com. Thanks!
National Margherita Pizza Day
Today has been National Margherita Pizza Day.
It has not quite worked out the way I thought it might.
For starters, I discovered that Margherita Pizza does not come with tequila. Wrong kind of Margarita. That was disappointing.
Then, as I walked away to do something else, I heard someone ask, “Is it okay to eat?”
I said yes, but I need enough left to photograph.
Apparently I should have been more specific.
Margherita pizza is one of the simplest and most recognizable pizza styles. It is traditionally made with tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and basil. According to the popular story, it was created in Naples, Italy, in 1889 and named after Queen Margherita of Savoy. The red tomatoes, white mozzarella, and green basil were said to represent the colors of the Italian flag.
In this case, the pizza survived long enough for me to get a photograph, although just barely.
To see my completed food photographs, along with my aviation, fitness, fashion, and other photography projects, please visit my website at https://www.secondfocus.com. Thanks!
National Sausage Roll Day and an American Translation
Depending on where you grew up, this photograph may not look like a sausage roll at all.
In the United Kingdom, a sausage roll is typically made with sausage wrapped in puff pastry and baked until golden brown. In the United States, most people looking at this photograph would probably call them pigs in a blanket.
Different names, similar idea.
Today’s photograph features a pile of pigs in a blanket from my Commercial Food Photography collection.
National Sausage Roll Day originated in the United Kingdom, which explains the name. Since my collection didn’t include a traditional British sausage roll, pigs in a blanket seemed like the closest American relative.
Whether you call them sausage rolls or pigs in a blanket depends largely on where you happen to be standing when you order them.
You can see more of my food photography, along with collections and other projects at https://www.secondfocus.com
National Fish & Chips Day and the Legacy of Haddon Salt
National Fish & Chips Day
Before there was H. Salt Fish & Chips, there was Haddon Salt.
In 1965, Salt opened the first H. Salt Esquire Fish & Chips in Sausalito, California, introducing a style of fish and chips inspired by the shops he had known in England. The idea proved popular, and what began as a single restaurant eventually grew into a chain that spread across the United States.
Today’s photograph features a serving of fish and chips from H. Salt for my FOOD FROM BAG TO BACKGROUND series.
Fish and chips has a history stretching back well over a century, with roots in England where fried fish and chipped potatoes became one of the country’s most recognizable meals. The combination eventually crossed the Atlantic and found a place in American fast-food culture as well.
For this photograph, the fish and chips were removed from their paper trays and photographed against a black background.
You can see more from my FOOD FROM BAG TO BACKGROUND series, along with collections and other projects at https://www.secondfocus.com
National Donut Day and the One You Would Pick First
National Donut Day
Somewhere in this photograph is the donut you would pick first.
That’s usually the game people play when they see a box of donuts.
Some head straight for the chocolate. Others reach for the glazed donut. Someone inevitably grabs the jelly-filled one, while another person is convinced the coconut-covered donut is the best choice in the box.
Personally, I’ve never seen much agreement.
For National Donut Day, I pulled together a selection from a local donut shop for this photograph. Once they were arranged against a black background, the display stopped looking like breakfast and started looking more like a collection. Different shapes, colors, textures, toppings, fillings, and glazes all competing for attention.
Donuts have become so familiar that it’s easy to overlook just how many variations exist. A simple ring of fried dough can become almost anything depending on what happens after it leaves the fryer.
National Donut Day itself dates back to 1938 when the Salvation Army established the observance to honor the “Donut Lassies” who served donuts to American soldiers during World War I. Nearly ninety years later, the day has become one of the most widely recognized food celebrations on the calendar.
Looking at this photograph, I’m still not sure which donut I would choose first.
Fortunately, nobody says you can only pick one.
You can see more from my FOOD FROM BAG TO BACKGROUND series, along with collections and other projects at https://www.secondfocus.com
National Egg Day and a Fast Food Icon
Eggs may be one of the most photographed foods in the world.
They show up in breakfast advertisements, restaurant menus, grocery stores, cooking videos, and enough stock photographs to fill the internet several times over. Yet somehow they remain one of the most recognizable ingredients ever put on a plate.
For National Egg Day, I decided to go in a slightly different direction.
Rather than photograph eggs by themselves, I turned to one of the sandwiches that helped make them a fast-food staple. The McDonald’s Egg McMuffin has been around for more than fifty years and is still one of the most recognizable breakfast sandwiches ever created.
This photograph features a stack of Egg McMuffins from my FOOD FROM BAG TO BACKGROUND series. No stylists. No carefully arranged garnish. No attempt to make them look like advertising. Just the sandwiches as they arrived, isolated against black and given the chance to stand on their own.
What interested me was the repetition. The English muffins, the eggs, the Canadian bacon, and the slices of cheese create a pattern that almost becomes architectural when several are stacked together. Something most people grab through a drive-thru window suddenly becomes a study of shapes, textures, and layers.
The Egg McMuffin wasn’t the first breakfast sandwich, but it helped define what a fast-food breakfast could be. Decades later, it remains a familiar part of morning routines across the country.
Not bad for something built around a simple egg.
You can see more from my FOOD FROM BAG TO BACKGROUND series, along with aviation photography, collections, and other projects, at https://www.secondfocus.com Chances are you’ll find something familiar that looks a little different when removed from its usual surroundings.
National Avocado Month and Taking a Second Look

There was a time when avocados felt almost exotic.
Today they’re everywhere. On toast, in salads, on burgers, in sushi rolls, and transformed into enough guacamole to fill an impressive number of restaurant bowls.
For National Avocado Month, I thought it was worth taking a closer look at the fruit itself.
Most of us encounter avocados as ingredients. They arrive sliced, mashed, diced, or blended into something else. Rarely do we stop to appreciate how distinctive they actually are. The dark, textured skin looks almost prehistoric, while the interior reveals smooth green flesh surrounding one of the largest seeds found in common produce.
Photographing food often gives me an excuse to slow down and look at familiar subjects more carefully. When an avocado is removed from the grocery display, the cutting board, and the recipe, details begin to stand out. The contrast between the rough exterior and the soft interior. The subtle variations of green. The simple geometry created by the seed and the cavity it leaves behind.
Avocados have become so common that they almost disappear into the background of everyday meals. Yet they’re still one of the more unusual fruits in any produce department.
Sometimes a familiar subject is worth a second look.
More of my Commercial Food Photography, along with aviation, collections, and other ongoing projects, can be found at https://www.secondfocus.com You may discover something you’ve seen countless times before, but never really stopped to look.
Late Night Edits with Emily
The Emily Integration project has been changing and evolving all along.
At first it was mostly experiments, visual concepts, themed shoots, and seeing what all of this technology was about and where it could go.
Late-night editing sessions. Coffee cups sitting on the table. Food photographs glowing on the monitor. Palm Springs outside the windows long after dark.
And Emily, my evolving AI muse and assistant, simply existing naturally inside that environment instead of feeling separate from it.
Nothing dramatic is happening. No big concept. Just Emily quietly reviewing photographs beside me working on SecondFocus projects.
What started as experiments and ideas are now active real-time collaborations, that will be next moving from text-based interaction, into actual conversation, and then soon into visual presence.
The science fiction is and will no longer be science fiction.
More from the ongoing Emily Integration project and my photography work on my website 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 Pigs In A Blanket Day
Today is National Pigs In A Blanket Day.
A name that sounds like it should require an explanation, but somehow never does.
So I made them. Or more accurately, I bought them, baked them, cut them into pieces, and piled them up.
In the United States, pigs in a blanket are typically made with cocktail sausages and crescent roll dough, a format that took hold in the mid-20th century as refrigerated dough products became widely available. They became a standard party food because they are inexpensive, easy to prepare in large quantities, and require no utensils.
Just pastry, sausage, and the quiet efficiency of a food that was never meant to last very long once it’s out. Try this next to that vegetable platter at your next party and see what happens.
More of my food photography, from simple compositions like this to everything else I’ve been working on, can be found at https://www.secondfocus.com
National English Muffin Day
Today is National English Muffin Day.
Which means at some point, someone decided this particular bread product needed its own moment of recognition. Not toast. Not bread in general. Specifically, the English muffin.
So I split them open, toasted them, stacked them, and photographed them against a black background like they were about to be evaluated for something more serious than breakfast.
English muffins date back to the late 1800s, when Samuel Bath Thomas, an English immigrant in New York, began selling them as a softer alternative to traditional British crumpets. They were cooked on a griddle instead of baked, giving them their signature flat shape and the interior texture that marketers would later describe as “nooks and crannies.”
Those “nooks and crannies” became the entire story. A structural feature turned into branding, repeated often enough that it now feels like a technical specification rather than a slogan.
Today, English muffins are not a niche product. About 171 million Americans consume them each year, and the category generates roughly $700 million in annual sales, with Thomas’ controlling close to 70% of the market.
Here, they are split, toasted, and arranged as they are. No styling, no additions, no attempt to improve them.
Just bread, texture, and the quiet confidence of something that’s been around long enough to not need explanation.
More of my food photography, from simple compositions like this to everything else I’ve been working on, can be found at https://www.secondfocus.com
National Jelly Bean Day
Today is National Jelly Bean Day.
So I simply poured an unreasonable number of jelly beans into a pile and photographed them against a black background.
Jelly beans have been around longer than they probably should have been. Their origins trace back to the 19th century, when Turkish Delight inspired the soft interior, and candy makers added a hard sugar shell. By the early 1900s, they were being marketed as an affordable treat, often sold by the pound.
They became closely associated with Easter in the 1930s, mostly because their egg-like shape fit the theme and they were cheap enough to produce in bulk. That hasn’t really changed.
Americans now consume billions of jelly beans each year, with estimates often landing somewhere around 16 billion during the Easter season alone. Flavors range from predictable fruit to combinations that seem designed more as a challenge than a snack.
What you’re looking at here is a simple pile, straight from the bag. No sorting, no styling, no intervention. Just color, sugar, and excess.
More of my food photography, from controlled compositions like this to everything else I’ve been working on, can be found at https://www.secondfocus.com
National Toss a Fruitcake Day
Today, January 3rd, National Toss a Fruitcake Day exists for reasons no one fully remembers, but the solution seems to involve throwing one as far as possible.
It seemed like a fun idea to me, so of course I talked it over with Emily, my AI muse and assistant.
She said she had the perfect friend for throwing a fruitcake.
Strong, disciplined, gym-built, and very comfortable with weight.
This is Dana.
I have been best known for years as an extensively published bodybuilding and fitness photographer, photographing as many as 30 competitions annually around the country, including the Olympia and the Arnold. My work has appeared in magazine features and advertising, sometimes reaching hundreds of titles in a single month around the world. Dana fits squarely in that world. We will see more of her.
My website is at SecondFocus.com Thanks.
National French Toast Day Fast!
Today is National French Toast Day, and I wanted to photograph something that fit the way I shoot food, especially fast food. So instead of the usual bread, eggs, and frying pan, I went looking for a version that lined up with my approach.
That search took me to the freezer aisle and to something I didn’t know existed: boxed French toast sticks. Straight from the oven and onto a plate, they matched my black-background style with no styling and no extras. Looks like fast food to me.
French toast itself goes back centuries. Versions of it appear in early European cookbooks as a way to use leftover bread, long before it became a diner and home-kitchen staple in the United States. The idea has stayed the same: bread soaked in egg and cooked until crisp on the outside and soft inside.
There is much more food to see on my website at SecondFocus.com Thanks!
National Sardines Day and Sardine Sashimi
Today is National Sardines Day, and it seemed like the right moment to offer an alternative to the rising price of sushi. I recently heard a discussion about Los Angeles restaurants charging $200 to $250 per person for sushi meals, and the speaker described this as “mid-priced” in today’s market. That level of cost feels completely out of touch. So I decided to create a quiet counterpoint of my own.
This photograph is my idea of “sardine sashimi, an open tin of sardines set on a ceramic plate, chopsticks across the top, and a small serving of wasabi. It borrows the structure of a traditional sashimi presentation but uses one of the most accessible foods you can buy in any grocery store.
Sardines have been part of the human diet for centuries. They’re rich in protein and omega-3s, shelf-stable, and still one of the most affordable seafood choices available. National Sardines Day exists partly to highlight that, a reminder of a food that has fed entire communities, traveled with sailors across oceans, and found its way into kitchens around the world. They remain an essential pantry item, from simple meals to quick snacks, without the cost or ceremony of fine dining.
You can find this new photograph in my Commercial Food Photography gallery on my website at SecondFocus.com, along with fast-food, many muses, and more of my projects.
National Pickle Day and a Memory From Budapest
Today is National Pickle Day, and it reminded me of something unexpected I learned in 2013 while working in Budapest as the stills photographer on a feature film. Our cinematographer was Vilmos Zsigmond, one of the most influential visual artists to ever stand behind a camera.
Vilmos had the résumé to prove it: McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Deliverance, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (for which he won the Academy Award), The Deer Hunter, Heaven’s Gate, and decades of work that helped define the look of modern American cinema. But what stayed with me most wasn’t only his talent, it was his discipline, his energy, and his belief in the small rituals that kept him going.
Vilmos told me he attributed his health and longevity to eating eight pickles a day. He wasn’t joking. At 82, he was on set long before anyone else arrived and still there long after we wrapped. Rain, cold, night shoots, he never slowed. The pickles, he said, were his secret. Maybe he was right.
So for National Pickle Day, I photographed this pile of deli pickles on my usual black background; simple, direct, and exactly the way they come out of the jar or bag. Nothing styled, nothing staged. It felt fitting. Pickles, after all, were part of what kept a legend of cinema going strong.
If you’d like to see more of my commercial food photography, visit my gallery here:
https://www.secondfocus.com/index/G0000WFAqDJQOgKU
National Submarine-Hoagie-Hero-Grinder Day
Today is National Submarine-Hoagie-Hero-Grinder Day — a sandwich with many names and, apparently, many holidays. Depending on where you look, there’s also National Hoagie Day in May, National Submarine Sandwich Day in November, and even separate days for the Italian Sub, the Turkey Sub, and the Meatball Sub. Few foods have this many national observances, which probably says something about how much Americans love a good sandwich.
The submarine sandwich began with Italian immigrants in the Northeastern United States in the early 1900s, layering meats, cheese, and vegetables inside long rolls. The word “submarine” gained popularity during World War II because of its resemblance to the naval vessels, while “hoagie,” “hero,” and “grinder” each found favor in Philadelphia, New York, and New England.
In 1965, a 17-year-old named Fred DeLuca opened a small sandwich shop in Bridgeport, Connecticut — with funding from a family friend — and called it Pete’s Super Submarines. That would eventually become Subway, now one of the largest restaurant chains in the world. The brand helped turn the regional sub into a fast-food staple recognized everywhere.
The photograph here shows two of Subway’s most popular sandwiches, cut in half and photographed side by side on a black background — stacked with meats, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, and mayonnaise. Like all of my Food From Bag to Background series, they’re presented as-is, straight from the bag, with no styling or props.
You can find this and more in my Food From Bag to Background gallery at https://www.secondfocus.com/index/G0000wQ3fbeEezF0
McDonald’s Hotcakes for National Pancake Day
Today is National Pancake Day. Instead of a diner short stack or some homemade recipe, I went with McDonald’s Hotcakes — straight from the bag, nothing styled, nothing staged. A little butter on top, a trace of syrup soaking in, and that’s it.
McDonald’s has been serving Hotcakes since 1977, one of the longest running items on their breakfast menu. They’ve become part of morning routines across the country, often ordered alongside the Egg McMuffin or a hash brown. For decades, they’ve been sold by the millions every year, making them one of the most widely eaten versions of pancakes in the United States.
And why “Hotcakes” instead of pancakes? The name goes back to an older American expression — “selling like hotcakes” — a 19th-century phrase meaning something that sells quickly and in large numbers. McDonald’s leaned into that history, choosing a word that already carried the sense of popularity and fast service.
That’s exactly why they belong in my From Bag to Background series. This project is about photographing fast food exactly as it comes, against a solid black background. Pancakes, burgers, tacos, sandwiches — all taken out of the wrapper and put in front of the camera. No props, no plating, no food stylist.
See more of my fast food photographs in From Bag to Background at:
https://www.secondfocus.com/index/G0000wQ3fbeEezF0



















