The cherry blossoms fire it up every year around this time in Vancouver, and people always explode with a ferocious amount of joy over how wonderful they are. There are even groups of people who ride their bikes around Vancouver together in absolute fascination with their… pinkness?

We were going to blow your minds with a Haiku about cherry blossoms today in honour of their awesomeness, but we’ll stick with just this picture instead.

Yay for cherry blossoms!

But we think it’s time you get to know us a little better as individuals. Because even though we share the same photography vision, we are rather different people.

So let’s start with the European guy. The Finn. Or Swede. Or whatever he is.

Jakob.

Yeah. Finn, Swede, whatever I am.

It’s very confusing. But it’s really not.

I grew up in a swedish speaking part of Finland, moved to Sweden when I was 19 and lived there till I moved to Vancouver late 2009. Finnish citizen. Swedish speaking.

Not that complicated.

There. Now we’ve straightened that out. Let’s move on.

I moved to Vancouver in November last year, which means I’ve lived here for a year now. I think it took me a month or two to make this city feel like home. And another couple of months to really fall in love with it. Now it’s definitely one of my favorite places on earth.

I’ve even started saying “eh” like a real canadian. Weird, eh?

“So why Vancouver?“ is the first question I always get. Well, it’s all Cole’s fault. But I’ll get to that in a bit.

“And why photography and why weddings?” is the next question.

To that, there’s really no short answer. It’s not like I knew that I wanted to be a wedding photographer when I was six years old (like my sister the doctor did).

Nope, far from it actually.

By coincidence I started doing photography professionally. Journalistic and corporate stuff. And as the guy with the fancy camera I ended up shooting a friend’s wedding a couple of years ago.

That’s how it all started and now there’s nothing I’d rather do.

One of the main reasons I love wedding photography is that the people we work with actually care about the results. They care enough to sometimes even cry seeing their photos.

It’s a great feeling knowing that what you do makes people happy. That it makes a difference. Kinda what makes the job meaningful.

My goal in life has always been to do something I really like for a living (and become insanely rich of course) and that’s exactly what I’m doing right now (the like part that is, the insanely rich is still to come).

I guess I have Cole to thank for that. He’s the one that convinced me to move across the globe and do this whole Nordica thing. Well – to be honest – what he really said was something like “the chicks are gonna love you here”.

Yeah. I usually go with the I-moved-here-to-start-up-a-business story.

I did actually run my own business (JG Media, doing photography and various design stuff) in Stockholm before I came too. But only as a side thing. And I’m not totally convinced it would ever have become anything more. Now I can’t imagine having a 9 to 5 job again.

So thanks eh, Cole.

What else?

I grew up in a small town where winters were too dark and too long. Our neighbours had cows and hens. I played soccer throughout my youth. I still love soccer. I’m a sucker for minimalism. I’m a Mac. I’ve been to 22 countries (or something like that). I could live on sushi alone. I took German in school for about 5 years and could probably not even order a beer in Germany. My grandpa’s first name was Viking. I’ve got a masters degree in business and entrepreneurship. I had higher scores than Cole throughout that masters year (I’m pretty sure that’s how it was, but Cole may be of another opinion). I’ve had cats named The Dark Man and Jesus. I’m not very religious.

There.

Hopefully you know me – one half of the Nordica machine – a little better now. Cole will tell you his story in a couple of days (or when he’s ready, he hates writing about himself almost as much as he hates having his picture taken).

:)

- Jakob

Vancouver is an absolute top-notch spot for photography. It’s got the mountains, the ocean, the beaches, the big-ass buildings and everything in between.

But we’re constantly looking for adventures and we love to see new places.

Jakob’s been all over the place, visiting some 25 countries. Cole’s no slouch either having lived in places like Helsinki, northern Sweden and being suitcased all over North America during his junior hockey days.

Add that up and you’ve got two guys who are primed and ready for destination weddings.

So for today’s blog post, we thought we would give you our individual top three wedding destinations. Why three? Well, we’re two dudes with different opinions and we don’t want this post to turn into a monster.

Jakob’s Top Three

3 // Hawaii

Hawaii is pretty much as exotic as it gets for me. Maybe it’s because I come from the complete opposite side of the globe, I don’t know, but I’ve always wanted to visit Hawaii.

And I love sun, beaches, palm trees and all that stuff.

So bring on Honolulu, Hilo or any other place on the 50th state and I’m all over it.

2 // India

I’ve never experienced an indian wedding in real life, but from the photos I’ve seen and from the stories I’ve heard, it seems like an absolute dream for a wedding photographer.

The weddings go on for days. It’s an overflow of awesome colours and patterns. And there are lots of traditions.

I’d love to do a wedding in India.

1 // Florence, Venice, Rome, or anywhere else in Italy

To me Italy’s got it all. Warm climate, awesome scenery, a lot of history, wicked food and a passion filled culture.

A wedding on a nice sunny evening in Italy is top of my wish list. It’d be absolute money.

Cole’s Top Three

3 // Inverness

I image Scottish weddings to be all-class. I’m not sure if it’s the kilts, the party-till-you-die attitudes I’m envisioning at the receptions or the killer accents, but there’s just something magical about Scotland. My cousins over there are probably gutting themselves reading that there’s something ‘magical’ about Scotland, but for me, there is.

The Highlands is my favourite region in Scotland by far. There are fistfuls of scenery in every direction and the people who lived there are insanely friendly, even if you can’t understand a word they were saying. Killer combo for a great wedding experience.

2 // Anywhere in Russia

Russia is a mind-bending place when it comes to digesting all of the culture going on. A wedding with some of those good-looking, vodka inhaling Ruskies would be challenging and intense, but what an experience it would be.

Aside from the beautiful people and the gorgeous cities, I think the most interesting part about photographing a Russian wedding would be the traditions and obsessive superstitions.

I was in Moscow on a May afternoon in 2005 and remember seeing a groom sprinting at breakneck speed across a bridge carrying his new-bride, both laughing hysterically. To me, seeing this was thoroughly confusing, but I’m sure there was a very good reason for this.

So Jakob and I would be totally lost the entire time if we were ever to do this, but man, would it be an amazing experience.

1 // Reykjavik or Akureyri

Anyone who knows me is fully aware that I have a weird obsession with Iceland. My dad’s side of the family comes from there, and since I was a kid, I’ve always been ridiculously curious about this odd little island.

When I was about 8 or 9 years old, my uncle gave me a book (or I took it, I can’t remember) with a badass picture of a Viking on the cover that contained all the Icelandic sagas, and I never put it down.

I was, and am, hooked. Shit, even as I’m writing this I’m listening to my favourite radio station that I’ve listened to for years, Xið 97,7.

But I’ve never been there.

So I’m not sure it’s totally necessary to delve into the million reasons why I want to photograph a wedding there, because we wanted to keep this post somewhat small. But, I will say it would be a surreal excuse to go there considering it’s all I’ve wanted to do for many years.

//

There you go folks, our destination wedding bucket list. We like weddings for many reasons, but one of our favourite aspects about a them is the cultural emphasis that occurs. So, hopefully destination weddings will continue for us in the future, and we can learn more about the world.

If you have met the Nordica crew, you probably have met Therese as well. She’s Cole’s girlfriend who he coaxed (along with Jakob!) over from Sweden a while ago. Therese also went to UmeÃ¥ University and studied accounting there. So, she does our accounting and finances, and without her, we’d be a very disorganized couple of fellas.

Tomorrow, she is running in the BMO Vancouver Marathon. She decided that this was going to be the year that she ran in her first marathon, and boom, she’s sticking to her goal. She’s doing the half-marathon, but that’s till 22 KM further then we’re running tomorrow!

So, lycka till Therese! We’re proud of you!

But it’s an interesting phenomena how every once in a while, people think that photographers should give away their services at no charge. We’re not complaining here, but it’s an interesting observation that we thought we would share. Especially considering the hours and hours photographers (at least us) spend on pictures after a shoot.

Craigslist is a great example of this. People actually have posted “Wanted: Free Wedding Photographers“. Isn’t that mind boggling? Imagine asking to get your car repaired for free. Or something like that. People would laugh at you.

Anyways, we saw this little cartoon and the timing was sort of ironic because we found this at the same time as we were talking about this topic.

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And since Nordica Photography focus mainly on people photography, we might as well take advantage of it.

So as of yesterday we’re running a project called ‘Faces of the Games‘ where we are portraying people of the Olympics. But – in opposite to most other medias – we’re not focusing on the actual games. Instead we’ll be giving you the people on the other side of the fence, the people who make the Olympics the gigantic party it is.

It’s all very simple. We’ll approach people who we feel capture the spirit of the games, ask to take their picture and post it on the website.

So check it out. It’s not filled with people yet, but in a few weeks it most definitely will be.

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Parts of the Nordica team, Cole and our accountant Therese were supposed to arrive in Vancouver on the 6th, but are still stuck in London due to a snowstorm. They will (hopefully) be arriving late night on the 9th.

Meanwhile, the remaining part of the team, Jakob is still waiting for his luggage (with camera gear) to arrive from Seattle.

We are online though, so feel free to send us an email if you’d like to get in contact with us!

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