Hello Nicholas,

Happy Holidays! I hope the season brings much happiness to you and your family.

For me, this is always a great time to reflect on the past year and make plans for 2024. This past year has been nothing short of outstanding which places the bar pretty high for next year. It's been the perfect balance of freelance and family time.

Here is another crazy long newsletter ... I hope you make it to the end. Finding content for these newsletters hasn't really been a problem since moving back to Southern California last year. I have my clients and friends to thank for that. Photography just never gets old for me and I hope the content of these newsletters convey some of the excitement I continue to get from it and perhaps inspire you. I generally share recent professional work, but the last two items are photos from recent trips to Washington State and Yosemite National Park ... iphone photos mind you (iphoneography) ... but they were just too beautiful to not share.

Always an interesting mix of work to share, that's for sure ... Enjoy, and let me know what you think. It's always great to hear back from folks receiving these emails.

Recently Published in the Press Enterprise

I love it when they republish food art that Cathy Thomas and I created back when we produced so many food images for the Orange County Register. And when they run it big with a great design ... that's even better. And there's even more below ...

CLICK HERE to get to this story and recipes

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This recently published photo of Norco's Presley Tennant came from a country music festival I photographed for the Press Enterprise earlier this year (Boots in the Park). It was a fun event to cover ... a little challenging to get close to the stage at times, but I managed with a little help from a couple big cowboys. I was pretty happy with the results.

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I know there's been a lot of football pics in these newsletters recently ... the games are fun to shoot, but we are now in playoff season, so I expect it to end soon. Here is a playoff game where Orange Vista High School dominated San Jacinto High. Lots of scoring which made it even more fun to shoot.

CLICK HERE to read the story and see the slide show.

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Here are a few football and volleyball photos that were drawn from previous assignments this season. I keep my eye out for when this happens because you just never know when they might re-publish one of your archived images. Some end up in print and some online ... either way, no complaints from me.

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This was an interesting assignment. I was at the Temecula School Board meeting last year when three new board members were sworn in, and now all three are the target of a recall election driven by community members. Not sure how it will go, but it's interesting to follow.

CLICK HERE to read the story and see more images.

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This was a crazy girls junior college volleyball match. Both teams were very good and it went the distance to determine a winner. San Bernardino Valley College outlasted Mt. San jacinto College 3 - 2. As the headline says, it was a thriller. CLICK HERE to get to the story and the slideshow.

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As promised ... more food photos! These two were both online and in print and as mentioned above, they are usually with a story by Cathy Thomas.

Though printed in the Register, these two images are actually from the Melissa's Cookbook 'Everyday Cooking with Organic Produce'. One of two cookbooks Cathy and I worked on together for Melissa's produce. I've mentioned this before, this book was on Emeril's top ten cookbooks when it came out ... I still think that was pretty cool.

Prior to starting the book, the team visited a few organic farms in Southern California to see in person how they handle growing organic produce. That gave us a great perspective before we even started the photography for the book.

To read the story and get these great recipes, CLICK HERE

And to get to the Cathy Thomas Cooks website, CLICK HERE

This is redundant, but here is how it looked in print. The print version gives a little context on how the images run plus I just love PDF's of published work :)

Here are a couple more of our food photos that ran recently in the Orange County Register and the Riverside Press Enterprise (and probably other SCNG Newspapers) ... Food photos are timeless!

CLICK HERE for the chowder story and recipe

CLICK HERE for the coffee cake story and recipe

Boys and Girls Learning Center

Being an AT & T customer myself, this event made me feel pretty good about my cellular company.

AT & T, partnering with the Boys and Girls Club of greater Anaheim-Cypress, opened a Learning Center at the Boys and Girls club in Anaheim. This will benefit so many kids locally. AT & T provided computers, a 3D printer and other tech equipment for kids to learn with. And to make this happen, they had to actually run a fiber cable from down the street ... so it wasn't an easy project.

This event was the official opening of the Learning Center and Ribbon Cutting ceremony. There were AT & T execs, Boys and Girls Club execs and other notables who helped make this Learning Center a reality.

A cool event to shoot and a huge help to the local community. Here are a few pics from the event ...

Crazy Fall Colors in Washington State

We took a short trip to Washington State recently and wow ... the fall colors were crazy. Keep in mind we lived there for four years, so we already know how beautiful it is there ... but this time the fall colors just jumped out at us.

Whatcom Falls (and bridge) were amazing as usual. We saw a gorgeous sunset at the beach in Blaine, took a hike to Bridal Vail Falls, visited the Ballard Lochs, and also went on a walk to a cool lighthouse in Discovery Park. Also included was dinner at Pike's Marketplace and of course had to see the gum wall again. The itinerary and housing of this trip was courtesy of our oldest daughter Lindsey and her fiance Nick. So much fun!

We really felt at home on this trip, almost like we never left. Pretty sure we are part Washingtonian now :)

Postcards from Yosemite!

My wife Colleen and I spent our honeymoon in Yosemite along with countless summers with family and friends. It was so much fun to be back ... it bought back so many great memories.

And as you can see in these photos, Yosemite was as beautiful as ever. I thought Washington fall colors were great, but I think they were just as amazing here. The last photo taken on our way out looks a little eerie ... they were doing control burns in the valley, so it has an unusual smokey look to it. Enjoy!

Lastly

Well, that's it for this time ... I officially have a blank slate for next time. We'll see what the next year brings. There's already some assignments, trips and projects on deck to look forward to. Feel free to share them with anyone you think might enjoy them or may be looking for a photographer. Contact info is below or I can also be reached through my website at www.nicholaskoonphotography.com.

In the meantime, have a safe and awesome holiday season. As I mentioned before, I always enjoy hearing from people who receive these newsletters. They are fun to create and in my opinion, the best way to keep in touch while also sharing some of my latest work.

Take Care,

Nick

Nick Koon

Nicholas Koon Photography

www.nicholaskoonphotography.com

nkphoto@aol.com

714.932.1714

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