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
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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
Celeste and Her Friends
I wanted to do something in one of my favorite genres, which I had been neglecting, pornochic, but not by repeating anything familiar. I greatly enjoy the creativity of the concepts. So I talked the idea through with Emily, my AI collaborator and muse, who I often use as a sounding board before I pick up a camera.
We kept coming back to the same name, her friend Celeste. She understands presence and stillness. She has been nude with us before, and she knows when nudity is doing the work and when it is not. When I shared the idea with her, there was no hesitation. She said she had two friends in mind, women she trusted, women who understood tone, and who would make the dynamic more interesting rather than louder.
What interested us was not action. It was control, proximity, and the way confidence shifts a room without asking permission. The three women move together without performance or explanation. The tension builds simply by allowing the camera to stay where it is.
At the end, there is sexual nudity. Not as payoff. Not as spectacle. Just as a resolved state.
Emily pointed out something I had not articulated at first. Celeste never gives anything to the camera. She allows it. I find that an interesting observation, and I perhaps see it in all of my past pornochic work.
On my website, visit the Featured Photographs Gallery at https://www.secondfocus.com/index/G0000zYSGtyvq3Sg and Videos at https://www.secondfocus.com/index/G0000zYSGtyvq3Sg to see more. Thanks!
My Favorite Bicycle Photoshoot. Ever.
Today , June 3rd is World Bicycle Day.
And what better way to mark the occasion than with a photo from my all-time favorite bicycle-themed shoot?
Yes, technically, there’s no bicycle in the frame. But she’s wearing a helmet—so that counts. Bike safety first, even when there’s absolutely no danger of a crash. Or movement. Or a bicycle.
Shot against my signature black background, this image plays with the absurdity of selective preparedness. She may be completely unprotected otherwise, but at least her head is safe. Priorities.
No bike was harmed—or used—in the making of this photograph.
A growing gallery of my Featured Photos on my website at https://www.secondfocus.com/index/G0000zYSGtyvq3Sg
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