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

Wedding slideshows are included in all of our 2011 wedding packages, so today we felt like posting an example to show what they look like.

Our packages also include a complimentary engagement session, and we create a slideshow for that as well.

This slideshow was from Leah and Rhett’s wedding in Cache Creek.

Two grown men doing wedding photography? One man is rare as it is, but two working together?

The roots of this atypical partnership (there was an example of the ‘closet feeling’ – forgetting to include business before partnership is a bit misleading) are fairly straight forward, and embedded in our shared passions for photography and business.

While growing up on the other sides of the globe, an education in business would bring this eventual business partnership together. We met while studying our business masters degrees in Sweden. Years after the completion of this education Nordica would be born in Vancouver.

Why Weddings

Wedding photography became our photography genre of choice for a couple of reasons.

First, we both have athletes’ mindsets. Second, the opportunity of style and story a wedding presents.

In sports you may not get more than one opportunity, so being mentally equipped to deal with the pressures is a must. Weddings share this demanding trait. Brides put on their wedding dresses once, the first kiss happens once and all memories on a wedding day happen once. Mess it up and your reputation as a wedding photographer is ruined. It’s that mental pressure that makes weddings so appealing and exciting for us.

The second reason why we do weddings is the opportunity to improve on a style of photography that we would want on our own wedding days, and when we write ‘our’ wedding days, we mean with the women we will marry one day, not with one another. See, that partnership thing is tricky eh?

In photography, brand and style go hand in hand. A brand is what your gut instinct tells you about a business or style, and we wanted ours to be extremely Nordica. So we set out to create style and avoid everything we disliked about wedding photography. Ridiculous poses, props, cringe-worthy photo editing techniques and a portrayal of photography that reflects what a photographer wants a wedding day to look like, rather then what happened on the day of the wedding.

We vowed to be better than that. To be better than the clichés and present a unique style that we like.

Those two things are what we think the core of awesome wedding photography. Mental preparedness and awareness, combined with a strict adherence to style that we believe in.

How We Photograph a Wedding

So what’s our style? Well, first and foremost it’s telling the story of your day as accurately as possible.

We do this by showing up as early as you permit us to arrive, and photograph your day until you feel comfortable with us leaving. Because we want to get the whole story. And going for the photojournalistic style, we do not interrupt anything and we do not get in the way. That allows the day to unfold naturally, and leaves out the posy and unnatural photography that we made a vow not to do. Basically, we’re like flies on the walls with fancy camera gear (plus fancy backup for that fancy gear).

So what do we do with the interactions, the tears, the laughs, the firsts, the ‘only once’ moments, the relief, the happiness, the toasts and the love after we’re done photographing your wedding?

Simple. We give you all the best photos.

You get everything, edited and ready in a format that allows you to use the pictures for whatever you want. We will never hold on to any photos and we will never try to sell you anything later on. Hidden fees have no place in our business model.

Nordica Photography

So, we’re Nordica Photography and those are the reasons we do wedding photography and the approach we take to your wedding photos.

If you’re interested in hiring us, please email us at info@nordicaphotography.com

To conclude, in four minutes you can check out what we do for a passion and a living, and why we ‘came out of the closet’: So we can tell wedding stories with our cameras.

Anyways, the lovely Behan ladies – Janis and Alex – work with Greg and asked us to do some headshots and portfolio work for Mr. Mueller. We’re not going to pop up the pictures quite just yet, but this teaser’ll have to do for now!

The Behans – those sly little devils – managed to whip up a nice video though of us taking a few pictures.

The video includes Greg looking like a bad-ass terminator, Jakob working the hell out of a dumpster in an alley and Cole’s mullet flapping around. Enjoy!

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Marc (from Amuse the event planner of all event planners) is getting the early arrivals organized and Madame Bollwitt is meandering about getting things looking good. And these kind folks in the picture below are the kick-ass duo from Mojave – they’ll be playing from time to time tonight!

On our end of things, we’ll put a few pictures in right now as an ‘intro post’, and after this we’ll just post pictures and shut our traps (meaning no text). So, if you’re interested in viewing some sites from Vancouver’s Twestival, please keep checking it! Alternatively, follow #yvrtestival on Twitter and you’ll see our photo updates and updates from others who are involved in this evenings affairs!

Onnnn to the pics!

We’ll be posting all the pictures throughout the evening over HERE. So click here if you want to follow the Twestival LIVE.

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On Thursday the 15th, we will be doing some volunteer event photography at an excellent and important global event: Twestival.

In a nutshell, Twestival (which stands for Twitter Festival) is a fundraising event that is global and uses Twitter as the catalyst to raise money for Concern Worldwide. This is a description of Concern Worldwide in their own words:

Concern Worldwide is a non-governmental, international, humanitarian organization dedicated to the reduction of suffering and working towards the ultimate elimination of extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries.

The Twestival event is pretty incredible though due to the participation globally and based on the effectiveness and willingness to give on behalf of the global Twitter community. But the organizers themselves can probably describe it better then us, so here you go in their own words:

On Thursday 25 March 2010, people in hundreds of cities around the world will come together offline to rally around the important cause of Education by hosting local events to have fun and create awareness.  Twestival™ (or Twitter Festival) uses social media for social good.  All of the local events are organized 100% by volunteers and 100% of all ticket sales and donations go direct to projects.  If you would like to get involved, please Register your City, Register your School, or Volunteer and we will get in touch.  Organizers will be given a handbook and invitation to our collaboration workspace.  Follow @twestival for updates.

Nordica Photography was asked to participate and do photography for the evening, and we didn’t hesitate to volunteer. Marc Smith and Rebecca Bollwitt were kind enough to ask us to get involved, so we thank them for thinking of us! We even threw in a Social Media Package that will be up for auction, so hopefully that helps raise some money for this wonderful event.

So, on Thursday if you aren’t coming to Twestival or you are partipating in Dining Out For Life (which is another excellent event for a great cause that just so happens to be going on the same night), then you can follow our site as we’ll be posting pictures from the event.

Alternatively, follow the hashtag #yvrtwestival (or the Vancouver’s Twestival handle which is @YVRtwestival) as there’s going to be a lot of Twitter action going on throughout the evening!

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As we mentioned in an earlier teaser post, Holly and Phillip won a contest that we had put on in December. Basically, the contest was for a free wedding photography package and to win, all a couple or their friends had to do was Tweet a message on Twitter and boom, you were entered to win our services.

Low and behold, Holly and Phillip won. And as part of their winnings was an engagement shoot. So, we met up on a drizzly morning in Gastown, took some pictures, and here’s the result.

See you two in a few weeks!

Oh yeah – and you know that Free Engagement Shoot we’re offering to couples who book with us before April 15th? Well, this is a taste of what the results of those free shoots would be! So, if you need a photographer still, fire us over an email!

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The wedding was pretty wicked in the end though. There were about 25 or so people and it was a real intimate affair at the Fish House in Stanley Park. Another cool thing about the wedding (for us) was we had free range to do as we please to get the best pictures. The couple was comfortable with us doing that, which was great considering we had just met them that morning!

Anyways, here you go. Wedding photography Nordica-style on a cloudy day in Stanley Park!

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So the location was just beside the Fish House in Stanley Park, and it was a beautiful, beautiful affair. The couple was gorgeous and everything fell into place – even the weather!

To be honest though, it wasn’t really a typical wedding day for us. The reason why is it was super short (like 2 hours) and we were in and our like a fiddler’s elbow.

Anyways, we have an ocean of pictures to wade through, so for now we’ll just pop up these two as teasers. We will put up the full meal-deal another day…

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This has been a week of archiving as you can see, and we pulled another cool wedding out from last season. And sticking with the destination theme, we’ll show you one that was done in Finland.

The couples names were Lauri and Mikaela. Enjoy.

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