Anyways, we had donated a Basic Social Media package to the event, as well as our services to photograph the whole shebang. It was a super fun night, and there was a lot of money raised.

So, the couple who bid and won our prize had decided that instead of getting a Twitter background (because they don’t use Twitter) they would prefer a couple shoot, to which we completely agreed to do.

To the Dr Sun Yet Sen Chinese Garden we went, and it was a fun photo shoot with a really kind couple.

Here are a two frames from the shoot, and thanks again you two!

Anyways, we took a calm walk around the Burrard Street Bridge and towards Granville Island, and mustered up some photos for their engagement shoot. Let’s just say that it was a little bit different (in a good way!) and the pictures are damn cool.

Here’s a teaser for now, and we’ll pop some more up next week! Thanks Andrew and Karran and we’re stoked about your upcoming wedding!

Who The Eff is Nordica

A little lightbulb went off in my head recently: Who / What the heck is Nordica Photography? I mean, obviously I know (and Jakob  knows), but for everyone else, you probably think we’re just a couple Eurotrash photographers who bombard the internet with our stuff.

So, let’s clear the air here today folks and give you the explanation of who we are, why we’re in Vancouver and how Nordica was born. It should only take 4 or 5 minutes here…

School in Sweden

Alrighty then. Let’s start with a  wee gander at these pictures:

Jakob on the right drinking Vodka, Cole next to him with something in a flask, an American dude and a wee fella’ from a town called Lycksele. It’s 3AM by the way and the suns still up..

Cole, Jakob, the wee fella from Lycksele, the lovely Therese and the American dude. Fun times.

Those drunkin’ party pictures were taken back in 2007 when Jakob and I met. Actually, when I met my lovely girlfriend Therese as well (she’s the girl in there eh).

This was from our graduation in Umeå, which is a university in Northern Sweden where we all met. We were all taking a masters program in business, and aside from partying a whole bunch and doing our damnedest to actually show up to class, the three of us all became high-fivin’ buddies.

That’s all well and good, but here’s a question I’m constantly asked: “Why the hell would you go to Sweden”? Great question! So why did I go to Sweden? I’m from 100 Mile House, which is splendid little village north of Kamloops and a far cry from Umeå, Sweden.

Well, this was back in 2006, and at the time my reasons for wanting to spend a year in Sweden went more or less went along these lines:

• Pretty cool scenery
• Free education (there’s no tuition for anyone in Sweden)
• Not a bad way to spend a year after my bachelors degree
• The education probably should be mentioned
• Smokin’ hot girls
• Why not?
• The program was in entrepreneurship which seemed pretty interesting
• I wanted to learn another language
• I just wanted to get away

So in a nutshell, those are a few reasons why I went. Another small influencer was probably that I had lived in Helsinki, Finland for a while back in 2003. I went to school there as well and while I was there, I had the chance to meander around that neck of the woods a wee bit, and I sort of fell in love with the place (the Nordic region). So, school seemed as perfect excuse as any to head back!

Application sent; application accepted; and off I go. Time to giver at a school in Umeå, Sweden.

Look north, my friends! Umeå is way up there, parallel with Yellowknife. It gets seriously cold there.

Getting Hammered with Jakob (Where we met)

So when the program in Umeå actually began in August of 2006, it was the first time I met Jakob. And let’s just clear the air here in case you haven’t met Jakob: He’s one quiet dude.

To give you some retrospect on why that is, let’s start with the fact he’s Finnish (not Swedish – he’s just lived in Sweden a shit load and his mother tongue is Swedish). If you’ve ever met a Finn, you know that they really appreciate silence. They would have no problem sitting in a room with 50 people in dead silence, and this culture is the sort that really only pipes up when it’s really necessary. Until you fire a few ‘adult pops’ in the ol’gullet, then you’ve got a none-stop-talking-Finnish-person, as was the case with Mr Jakob. So, he seemed like a pretty damn good guy for me to be around: A guy who would listen!

We first met at a student bar called Corona in September 2006 . I had been blazing through a few of the aforementioned wobbly-pops, and low and behold Brad-effin’-Pitt cruised on into the bar. What the hell was Mr. Brangalina It doing way up here? I had to ask.

“Brrrrrrraaaaaaaadddddddd!!!!!!!!!!”

“Forlåt, nej, jag heter Jakob” (Sorry, no, my name is Jakob)

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh”

Turns out Jakob (that lucky prick) looks exactly like Brad Pitt, and I was having a delirious-intoxicated-stupid moment to think Brad Pitt was hanging out in a student bar in Northern Sweden.

But, that was about it. That’s where I met Jakob. After that, we continued our domination of the poopsies in Corona and continued afterward to the after-party.

Turns out though Jakob and I had every single class together for that year and we were sort of competitive with one another. Actually a whole lot of competitive. Whether it be my domination of him in classwork, my domination of him in a Swedish game called Kubb, my domination of him in bocce, my domination… you get the point – we were competitive (and I’m sure if he was writing this, he’d tell you the competitive domination was the other way around). But this competitiveness was a good thing for sure, and probably the foundation of our friendship.

Cole, the wee fella from Lycksele again, and Brad Jakob

This is bollé, a Swedish game like bocce. Cole dominated Jakob in this game…

The Years After Umeå

Alright, so you get the point if you’ve read to this point. I’m from a redneck town, Jakob’s a Finn, we met at school in Sweden and we both have backgrounds in business education. Big deal.

But what about after Umeå and why are we in Vancouver?

Well, after UmeÃ¥, Jakob and the horseshoes up his “you know where” got a sweet job in Stockholm. Literally right out of school. He could probably explain it better then me, but basically he worked as a website content guy for some government thingamajig. Something like that. But what this job allowed him to do was become a fucking all-star in photography and editing. If there was a photo-course in Sweden or a editing workshop to attend, he attended it. It was a dream-job. Maybe he’ll explain it more for all you folks, but basically he did this for about two years after UmeÃ¥.

My years after Umeå was basically a gong show that was comprised of job searches, moving, sleeping on laundry room floors, working at god awful restaurants, inflating a debt, living in villages of 50 people, not telling anyone where I was most of the time out of embarrassment, and becoming more and more frustrated with everything.

To break it down in a little,  here’s an abbreviated synopsis of my ‘moves’ from 2007 to now:

1. June 2007 from Umeå to 100 Mile House
2. September 2007 from 100 Mile House to Victoria
3. September 2007 from Victoria to Kelowna
4. October 2007 from Kelowna to Blue River (yes, Blue River)
5. December 2007 from Blue River back to 100 Mile House
6. March 2008 from 100 Mile House to Umeå, Sweden (yep, back to Umeå!)
7. May 2008 from Umeå, Sweden to Söderhamn, Sweden
8. June 2008 from Söderhamn, Sweden to Stockholm, Sweden
9. October 2008 from Stockholm, Sweden to 100 Mile House
10. December 2008 from 100 Mile House to North Vancouver
11. March 2008 from North Vancouver to Gastown

I think I got that right. So, Jakob was lovin’ life with a pimpin’ job in Stockholm, and I was nomading.

The key ingredient though for this whole nomadic post-Umeå adventure though was this: Therese, my girlfriend, was by my side the entire way. While I was jumping around from idea to idea, place to place, and job to job, she was straight as a frozen rope and didn’t fret or become freaked out by my million-ideas-at-once lifestyle.

Believe it or not, Therese stuck with me even when I looked like this. Yikes.

Here’s Nordica

“For the love of Peter, Paul and Mary! Get to the point of this whole post, Cole!” – I’m sure you’re feeling like that by now. So let’s wind this down folks.

Jakob had a rad job in Stockholm, and I had finally planted my feet in Vancouver with Therese. Calm, stability, happy times. But as I had been nomading, I was also knee-deep in photography the whole time. I had always loved photography because of my kick-ass photographer mother, so it was always hovering in the back-burner.

So when I moved to Gastown, I decided to start a photo blog. I figured a picture a day or something would be pretty sweet, and Jakob had been doing it for a while so those competitive juices started flowing again. I would have to dominate the Finn in photo blogging.

So I started the blog, and without even knowing it, my photography career began. Within a few months, I was doing headshots for people, had weddings on the go, was going to live blogging events, and – this was the part that absolutely blew my mind – people were actually paying me to do something that was part hobby / part passion / all fun. Sweet!

With that in mind, I figured may as well jump headfirst into the competitive shit and get a co-pilot. Enter Mr. Granqvist.

With some serious coaxing and a whole lot of manipulation (pictures of Vancouver really worked), he came in November of 2009. Awesome. Nordica was born.

Nordica Photography

So, there’s the background of ‘us’ and how we got here. Now, why “Nordica”? Well, we liked the name eh. Thought it sounded cool and I always had a vision of opening something similar to Corona (the bar in UmeÃ¥) and give it a jive name, such as Nordica.

But the name itself really connects back to where we met. Northern Sweden has a huge connection for us, and is really a reflection of what we try to achieve with photography. Keep it simple, keep it professional and just be ourselves. Just like our lifestyles back in Umeå.

That last bit is definitely important for us. While some photographers go on and on and on about ‘I became a photographer because I’m a dreaaaamer’ or ‘I call my photography company Beautiful Itty Bitty Cutesy Wootsy Footsteps’ or ‘bla bla bla’ – our story is just being us. Cut the bullshit, keep it simple and just be who we are. Nothing about us is made of fluffy bullshit and really, what you see is what you get.

There you go. That’s Nordica Photography and if you’d like to grab a pint one day and meet us, shoot us an email. We’re always game for meeting folks eh!

E-mail us | Wedding Portfolio | People Portfolio | Join the Nordica Facebook page | Follow us on Twitter | Faces of the Games |

What:

We are giving away a full coverage wedding photography package to one lucky couple. When we say full coverage, we mean the whole meal deal: The two of us shooting your whole day from the morning makeup and hair to the reception to the final dance at the end of the night.

To get a feel for what your wedding photos could look like, click here to have a look at some pictures.

How to Win:

To enter into the contest, you enter by doing two (2) things:

1) You must Tweet the following message into your Twitter account*:

RT @jakobg @allan_cole @nordicaphoto #vancouver #wedding #photography http://nordicaphotography.com/?p=257

* If you don’t have a Twitter account, you’ll need to start one up at www.twitter.com in order to be eligible to win. It takes about a minute.

2) You must make a comment in the bottom of this post. The comment must include these three details:

When the wedding is. The name of the couple getting married. Where the wedding will be.
Feel free to make whatever other comments you like, but those three things get you entered!

When:

The contest starts today and the winner will be announced on December 24th, 2009. Entries will be accepted until December 23rd, 2009 at 12 (noon) Vancouver time. The contest is open to anyone having a wedding before September 1st, 2010.

Contest Details:

How many times can I enter for the contest?

One individual = One entry. However, you do not have to be getting married in order to enter the contest. What this means is if you are a couple that has 10,000 friends (for example), those 10,000 friends can each enter the contest. This would obviously increase your chances of winning, so by all means, get your friends to enter!

How is the winner selected?

The winner will be selected in the form of a draw. All the names of the eligible contestants will be put in, and one winner will be selected. The draw will be recorded on video and the video will be here, in the Nordica Photography blog.

What is not included with the winnings?

Travel expenses. What this means is if you win the contest and live in Bangladesh, Moscow, Hong Kong, Helsinki or New York (for example) we’d be more then happy to shoot your wedding, but our travel expenses will need to be covered. That being said, we encourage international contestants! We’re big on the traveling thing and destination wedding photography is right up our alley! Our passports are always needing more fancy stamps in them!

What is the value of this wedding photography?

$3,500. With that in mind, you cannot try to exchange this for cash.

At the wedding, who does the photography?

You win the two of us. We work together on all projects, including weddings, so we are both shooting your wedding.

Why Are We Doing This?

We want someone to win this because if one day either of us were given the same gift, we’d be totally pumped. So, we’re making some lucky couple happy and karma is a good thing!
Photography is fun. Winning free stuff is fun. Combining those two things is fun. The end.
Our wedding photography skills are something we’re proud of, and if you don’t win, you can still book us!

—

Current Entrants:

Total Entries: 88

Amount of Couples: 19

Rebecca    Jenny | Sean    New Westminister | Fall, 2010

Vancity Buzz    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Karan    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Yogeshwar    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Adela    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Jill    Samantha | Wesley    Summer Hill Winery | August, 8th, 2010

Sukhpai   Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Sophia    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Sim    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Richard    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Mary    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Mike    Samantha | Wesley    Summer Hill Winery | August, 8th, 2010

Samantha    Samantha | Wesley    Summer Hill Winery | August, 8th, 2010

Hilary    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Donna    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Karm    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Dexter    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Sofie    Monica | Erik    Los Angelas | February 6th, 2010

Per    Monica | Erik    Los Angelas | February 6th, 2010

Saarthak    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Prabh    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Humaria    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Jenny K    Nina | Steinar    Norway | Early fall, 2010

Mamta    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Debbie Litonjua    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Dr. Ben Anders Robbie Kelm | Lindsay Anders | Kelowna, BC | August 28, 2010

Caylie    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Christine    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Patrick    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Sabera    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Jennifer    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Ben D Anders Robbie Kelm | Lindsay Anders | Kelowna, BC | August 28, 2010

Shannon Robbie Kelm | Lindsay Anders | Kelowna, BC | August 28, 2010

Phoenix Lamb    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Richard    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Michael Kwan    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Art    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Francis    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Merry W     Merry W | John | Grouse Mountain, BC | June 19, 2010

Jolene     Steve | Jolene | Maple Ridge, BC | August 21, 2010

Lorene Anders      Robbie Kelm | Lindsay Anders | Kelowna, BC | August 28, 2010

Melissa     Robbie Kelm | Lindsay Anders | Kelowna, BC | August 28, 2010

Silvia    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Daisy    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Dennis    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Elisse    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Flora    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Joanne    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Dilara    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Denleigh    Dennis | Dilara    Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise | Fall, 2010

Lorene    Robbie Kelm | Lindsay Anders | Kelowna, BC | August 28, 2010

Robbie    Robbie Kelm | Lindsay Anders | Kelowna, BC | August 28, 2010

Hjalmar    Robbie Kelm | Lindsay Anders | Kelowna, BC | August 28, 2010

Lindsay    Robbie Kelm | Lindsay Anders | Kelowna, BC | August 28, 2010

Stephanie    Stephanie Lambert | Justin Jackson   Wallis,Texas | January 8,2011

Pilar    Alex Langer | Tracy Macdonald    Whistler, BC | August 21st, 2010

Rick    Alex Langer | Tracy Macdonald    Whistler, BC | August 21st, 2010

Gabriela    Alex Langer | Tracy Macdonald    Whistler, BC | August 21st, 2010

Triston    Alex Langer | Tracy Macdonald    Whistler, BC | August 21st, 2010

Barb    Alex Langer | Tracy Macdonald    Whistler, BC | August 21st, 2010

Jennifer    Alex Langer | Tracy Macdonald    Whistler, BC | August 21st, 2010

Alexis    Alex Langer | Tracy Macdonald    Whistler, BC | August 21st, 2010

Loudres    Alex Langer | Tracy Macdonald    Whistler, BC | August 21st, 2010

Jane    Alex Langer | Tracy Macdonald    Whistler, BC | August 21st, 2010

Rosita    Alex Langer | Tracy Macdonald    Whistler, BC | August 21st, 2010

Tracy    Alex Langer | Tracy Macdonald    Whistler, BC | August 21st, 2010

Alex    Alex Langer | Tracy Macdonald    Whistler, BC | August 21st, 2010

Jess    Alex Langer | Tracy Macdonald    Whistler, BC | August 21st, 2010

Triston    Alex Langer | Tracy Macdonald    Whistler, BC | August 21st, 2010

David    Alex Langer | Tracy Macdonald    Whistler, BC | August 21st, 2010

Gabe    Alex Langer | Tracy Macdonald    Whistler, BC | August 21st, 2010

Wendy    Trevor May | Angela Melick    North Vancouver, BC | July 10th, 2010

Cassandra    Trevor May | Angela Melick    North Vancouver, BC | July 10th, 2010

Trevor    Trevor May | Angela Melick    North Vancouver, BC | July 10th, 2010

Sammi    Trevor May | Angela Melick    North Vancouver, BC | July 10th, 2010

Angela    Trevor May | Angela Melick    North Vancouver, BC | July 10th, 2010

Allison    Holly | Philip    Abbotsford, BC | April 3rd, 2010

Karen    Holly | Philip    Abbotsford, BC | April 3rd, 2010

Joslyn    Holly | Philip    Abbotsford, BC | April 3rd, 2010

Holly    Holly | Philip    Abbotsford, BC | April 3rd, 2010

Philip    Holly | Philip    Abbotsford, BC | April 3rd, 2010

Dolly    Dolly | Christopher    West Vancouver, BC | May 16th, 2010

Christopher    Dolly | Christopher    West Vancouver, BC | May 16th, 2010

Katelyn    Nathanael |  Katelyn    Cypress Mountain, BC | October 16th, 2010

Emily    Sherrie Galey | Kevin Creasser    Victoria, BC | August, 2010

Jenny    Jenny Miles | Sean Cassidy    New Westminster, BC | October 2nd, 2010

Carina    Lina Eriksson | Oscar Sjöholm    Silverskär, Finland | June 12th, 2010

Kashif    Kashif | Shazia    Richmond, BC | June 12th, 2010

Gina    Gina Johnson | Logan Kane    Surrey BC | August 21st, 2010

What to say in our first blog post? Well, perhaps a brief introduction is appropriate as we are two people acting under the umbrella of Nordica.

Jakob Granqvist is our “Nordic” representative in this partnership. He comes from Finland and has spent most of the last decade studying and working in Sweden. He’s a heck of a soccer player, and the poor guy looks like Brad Pitt. We’re actually curious if anyone will notice at this weeks Whistler Film Festival that Nordica will be participating at.

Cole Roberts is the Canadian part of the equation, as he comes from 100 Mile House, BC. He’s been living in Sweden off and on the last few years due to his studying in Umeå, Sweden and the fact that his girlfriend comes from Sweden. He’s also lived in Helsinki, Finland, so the Nordic influence is definitely prevalent.

What can you expect from this blog? Well, it will be used as a bit of a news source for Nordica happenings, and we’ll put things up as deemed important. This Friday, for example, we will be doing live blogging from the Whistler Film Festival. If you want to see live shots, and perhaps a bit of commentary as it happens, then keep an eye on the blog throughout the day!