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.

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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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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We’re having a contest folks! Because we’re bloody huge fans of giving away free schwag eh!

So, we’ve been scratching our heads here for a while, pondering this internal dilemma: How can we create awareness that we do social media photography, we create websites and Twitter backgrounds, and we have a Facebook Fan page that (we feel) is worthy poking around on once in a blue moon?

Then we came up with this lil’diddy: A Facebook contest where all you need to do is tag yourself (or a friend) in a picture and you can win a brand spanking new website, a photoshoot with two photographers and fancy new Twitter background.

Boom! Simple! Love it! Huge fan!

So that’s what we’ve got cooking right now at Nordica Photography. The short explanation is below, but if you want to read the more detailed version of the contest (and you should!), please click here.

The Short Explanation:

What is it: This is a Facebook-based contest put on by Nordica Photography.

What can you win: A premium Social Media Photography package. This includes a photography session, a new website and a new Twitter background ($1000 value).

How to enter: You tag yourself in a picture on the Nordica Photography Facebook Fan Page. Your friends can also be tagged in the picture and win the prize on your behalf (in order to be able to tag, you must become a fan).

How the winner chosen: Anyone who is tagged in the picture will be entered into the random draw. The winning name can give the prize to whoever they choose at that point.

When does it close: April 1st at noon Vancouver time. The winner is announced later that day.

So that’s our fancy Facebook contest. We hope that it gets a decent response and, more importantly, the winner is someone who can really benefit from having a new website. It’d be really great if the winner was someone who needed great photos and a professional internet presense, so if you know someone who would benefit from winning this great prize, go to the Fan Page on Facebook and tag your heart out!

Oh, and if you go to the Facebook Fan Page and have trouble finding the picture to tag yourself in, just click here. That’s the picture :)

Good Luck to everyone who enters!

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Luckily for us, we love both sides of the coin.

So, one part of the ‘staring at the computer’ process that we especially enjoy after weddings is the design part, and more specifically designing wedding books.

This is something we offer all couples we shoot for, and we strongly encourage them to get these customize made little suckers. Looking at pictures of yourself in an awesome coffee table book is something special!

Wedding books are also great for showing your family and friends afterwards, and they’re just a nice and tangible way to hold your memories. After all, you’re not always going to have a laptop kicking around to show off your sexy wedding photos!

So here’s an example. This is Sanna and Jan, a Finnish couple, and a few snapshots of their wedding coffee table book.

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