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 Biscuit Day and the Simplicity of FOOD FROM BAG TO BACKGROUND
National Biscuit Day.
Some foods don’t really need marketing agencies, AI enhancement, stylists with tweezers, or fake steam drifting through the frame.
Biscuits are one of them.
These are just peel-apart biscuits photographed for my FOOD FROM BAG TO BACKGROUND series exactly the way they came out of the package and oven. No brushed butter, no artificial shine, no tricks to make them look taller, fresher, or more dramatic than they actually were.
And honestly, that was always part of the point of this project.
Fast food and convenience food advertising has trained people to expect food to look exaggerated, oversized, and almost synthetic. But when you isolate something simple against a black background and actually pay attention to it, the real texture starts doing the work by itself. The layers, the uneven browning, the soft edges, the imperfect shapes. Those details are usually hidden behind logos, wrappers, commercials, and speed.
Biscuits are also strangely tied into American fast food culture. Fried chicken chains, drive-thru breakfasts, gas station counters, roadside diners. They exist somewhere between comfort food and convenience food, which is probably why they fit this project so well.
So for National Biscuit Day, no AI animation experiments, no dramatic visual effects, just biscuits.
And when I was a kid, when my mom made these, I could have eaten every one of them, each with a pat of butter melting into the middle.
If this photograph brought back a memory, made you hungry, or simply made you look at something familiar a little differently, there are dozens more waiting in FOOD FROM BAG TO BACKGROUND. Burgers, tacos, pizza, donuts, fries, sandwiches, and other foods pulled straight from the bag and placed under the same black backdrop.
You can explore the entire series here on my website at https://www.secondfocus.com/index/G0000wQ3fbeEezF0
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
International Waffle Day Today, From Eggo to Everything Else
Most people don’t think twice about waffles. But they probably should.
Because somewhere between a homemade Belgian waffle and a frozen Eggo waffle, something distinctly American happened.
My version today starts in the freezer.
A stack of Eggo waffles, heated, finished with syrup, and placed onto a black background. No garnish, no pretense. Just the product, exactly as it shows up in kitchens across the country.
Eggo waffles date back to the 1950s, originally created by brothers Frank, Anthony, and Sam Dorsa. They were first called “Froffles”, a combination of frozen and waffles, before the name Eggo took over. By the 1970s, the brand became a staple in American households, helped along by a simple idea, waffles without the work.
But waffles themselves go much further back.
Early versions trace to medieval Europe, where patterned irons were used to cook thin batter between heated plates. By the time Belgian waffles were introduced to the United States at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, waffles had already evolved into something more refined, lighter texture, deeper pockets, and often served with fruit, cream, or powdered sugar.
Today, the spectrum is wide.
On one end, you have carefully plated waffles in restaurants, topped with berries, whipped cream, and sauces, presented as something closer to dessert than breakfast.
On the other, you have this.
Straight from the freezer, into the toaster, onto the plate.
And that may be the more honest version.
No ceremony. No reinvention. Just something quick, familiar, and widely understood.
That’s where my food photography, pornochic photo adventures, and more can be found on my website at https://www.secondfocus.com
National Hash Brown Day
Today is National Hash Brown Day, which seems like a perfectly reasonable excuse to cook a pile of them.
Hash browns have been part of the American breakfast for more than a century. The name comes from the French word “hacher”, meaning to chop. In the late nineteenth century restaurants began serving what were called “hashed brown potatoes,” chopped or shredded potatoes fried until crisp. They appeared on hotel breakfast menus and quickly spread to diners and restaurants across the country.
The modern hash brown patty, however, is a much newer development.
Many people associate the familiar patty with McDonald’s, where the crisp rectangular hash brown became one of the most recognizable breakfast sides in America.
But the frozen food industry actually got there first.
In the 1960s frozen potato company Ore-Ida introduced frozen hash brown patties as part of the expanding frozen convenience food market. Shredded potatoes were formed into patties that could go directly from the freezer to the oven or pan. When McDonald’s launched its national breakfast program in the early 1970s, the frozen patty format worked perfectly for restaurant kitchens and quickly became associated with the chain.
For this photograph I cooked a batch of frozen hash brown patties and piled them onto their packaging, a small nod to their frozen food origins. A few broken pieces reveal the soft shredded potato interior beneath the crisp exterior.
Not bad for something that started as chopped potatoes in a hotel kitchen and ended up in the frozen food aisle.
You can see more of my Commercial Food Photography on my website at…
https://www.secondfocus.com/index/G0000WFAqDJQOgKU
National Bagel and Lox Day
Today is National Bagel and Lox Day, centered on one of the most enduring deli combinations: a bagel layered with cream cheese and lox. I have always known this as Lox and Bagels and Cream Cheese. I do not know where it got reversed in the title for the “Day Of”. Also it appears on product labels as “Smoked Salmon”. I didn’t know Salmon smoked.
The word lox comes from the Yiddish laks, itself rooted in Scandinavian words for salmon. Long before refrigeration, salmon was cured with salt as a way to preserve it, resulting in the rich, silky fish that became a staple in Jewish deli culture after Eastern European immigrants arrived in the United States. Smoked and cured fish traveled well, kept reliably, and paired naturally with bread and dairy.
Over time, the bagel and lox became a deli favorite, especially in cities like New York, where appetizing shops specialized in cured fish, cream cheese, and bagels baked daily. It evolved into a familiar breakfast and brunch standard, still tied closely to tradition.
This is how those of us who love it would prefer it: a bagel, cream cheese spread thick, and lox stacked high. So that is how I made it. Red onion sliced thin on the side, but I will photograph that by itself.
You can see more food photographs in my Commercial Food Photography gallery here:
https://www.secondfocus.com/index/G0000WFAqDJQOgKU
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 Bacon Lovers Day
Today is National Bacon Lovers Day, the unofficial holiday where logic takes a back seat and bacon worship takes center stage. People put it on donuts, add it to milkshakes, and even buy bacon-scented candles just to keep the smell lingering. Entire restaurant menus have been built on the premise that if you slap bacon on it, people will line up. If aliens tuned into Earth’s food culture, they’d probably assume bacon was our national currency.
This photograph presents a generous pile of bacon arranged in a metal pan against my signature black background. Each strip, glossy and rippled, catches the light in a way that emphasizes both texture and indulgence. It’s less about restraint and more about the abundance that makes bacon an enduring favorite.
From diners and drive-thrus to fast food chains with signature creations like the Wendy’s Baconator or the Jack in the Box Ultimate Bacon Cheeseburger, bacon continues to hold its own as a cultural staple. National Bacon Lovers Day is the moment to acknowledge that popularity — and perhaps to ask whether there can ever be too much bacon.
You can see this and more in my Commercial Food Photography gallery:
https://www.secondfocus.com/index/G0000WFAqDJQOgKU
Today is International Waffle Day!
My photograph of Eggo waffles, arranged in a casual stack and drizzled with maple syrup. The waffles are straight from the freezer, oven toasted, and set against a black background—no styling, no props, just the familiar grid pattern and glossy syrup doing what they do.
Waffles date back to medieval Europe, but Eggo brought them to American freezers in 1953. Invented by Frank Dorsa in San Jose, California, they were originally called “Froffles.” When people started asking for “those egg waffles,” the name changed to Eggo. Dorsa also built a machine to mass-produce them—an early example of kitchen innovation meeting industrial design. By the 1970s, “L’eggo my Eggo” had taken hold.
More in my “From Bag to Background” gallery at http://SecondFocus.com Thanks!
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