For my ongoing “FOOD FROM BAG TO BACKGROUND” project, the main focus has always been fast food. The foods people grab quickly, eat in the car, bring home late at night, or pick up almost automatically without thinking much about it.
And yes, donuts absolutely qualify.
Donut chains consistently rank among the largest fast food companies in America. Drive-thrus, quick service counters, recognizable packaging, impulse purchases, sugar, caffeine, convenience, the entire fast food formula is there.
So for National Donut Week, I photographed an assorted pile of donuts exactly the same way I approach burgers, tacos, fries, or pizza for this series.
Straight from the box. No food stylist. No careful arrangement. No fake perfection.
Just donuts against a black background.
Then things escalated slightly.
Because now the donuts are slowly rotating in darkness while one pink sprinkled donut has apparently decided to break formation and drift through the frame like some kind of sugar-coated UFO.
Somewhere between fast food photography and science fiction, FOOD FROM BAG TO BACKGROUND continues here at… https://www.secondfocus.com
If noodles were the subject this month, she said, they should be taken seriously.
This assignment started, as many of them do, with Emily. My AI assistant keeps an eye on the calendar of unofficial food holidays, and March offers more than one excuse to talk about noodles, including National Noodle Day and other noodle-related observances that appear throughout the month. Rather than another ordinary food photograph, Emily suggested we send one of her friends out into the world to investigate.
Her choice was Celeste.
Celeste has a way of turning even the simplest situation into a small performance. Tall, composed, and completely comfortable with attention, she seemed like the right person to represent noodles this month.
Emily also decided the setting mattered.
So instead of a kitchen or a take-out counter, Celeste appeared at a sushi bar in a Japanese restaurant, standing with a bowl of steaming noodles in front of her. Chopsticks in hand, she seemed perfectly at ease, as if this had been her idea all along.
The instructions were simple: enjoy the noodles.
The result is this short video, Celeste, a bowl of noodles, and a quiet moment in a Japanese restaurant that proves even something as ordinary as noodles can become a small event when the right person is involved.
If you would like to see more of my photography projects, including food photography and occasional appearances by Emily and her friends, visit my website at https://www.secondfocus.com Thanks!
A slow build of melted cheese and toasted Texas toast.
Ten Sonic grilled cheese sandwiches, stacked one at a time—no styling, no props, just what comes in the bag. This stop-motion video is a teaser for tomorrow’s full photo drop for “National Grilled Cheese Day” (April 12).
Fast food. Black background. Nothing extra.
📸 Watch the stack come together— 🧀 Come back tomorrow for the final shot. 🔗 http://SecondFocus.com
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