We’ve always referred to Nordica as our baby, and it is. Nordica’s roots are deep within both our lives and we’ve nurtured it, fed it, and watched it grow ever since we gave it a name and started shaping it’s identity in November of 2009. Like any proud parents, we shone the limelight a bit too bright on a baby that we knew nothing about, and we may have blinded ourselves a bit along the way.

But, with naive in full force, we pushed forward believing our baby would grow to be awesome.

Nordica took a few steps in 2010 – steps that we were very proud of and still are – but those steps were not unlike a crazy teenager’s.

More confident then experienced, more talking then listening, more dreaming then action. In 2010, Nordica was the loud-mouthed guy who screamed greatness having yet achieved a thing, and yelling to the world all the things he wanted to achieve one day.

Then, in 2011, it started to happen.

Some – not all – of the things the loud-mouthed teenager was screaming began to happen. It was as though Nordica had just cruised the university, had a dream job in mind, and actually got hired.

We dreamt about photographing a wedding in Iceland. Nordica ended up beside glaciers on one trip, and isolated countryside the next.

We dreamt about photographing multicultural weddings. We found ourselves in Sikh temples, Mexican jungles, Swedish archipelagos, historical farmlands, Indian ceremonies and faraway ranches.

Throughout 2011, we lived the dreams that we envisioned to be possible when we first started. We had big ideas, and somehow they came true.

And as 2011 drew to a close, we realize that we weren’t yelling a bunch of bullshit without substance anymore, and we weren’t living in some sort of fantasy that would be whisked away.

We realized that our little man, Nordica, had done a great deal of maturing, and we are proud of who he’s becoming. There are many lessons to be learned still, but experience and achieving goals has lit a fire in our little man, and we look forward to seeing where the journey takes him in 2012.

We recently started doing private one-on-one mentoring sessions. And since we enjoy doing them, as well as getting to know fellow photographers, we’ve now decided to “go public” with them.

So, during winter/spring 2012, we’ll be offering private Nordica one-on-one workshops. Or two-on-ones, as is the case with us.

It’s a day of us (Cole, Jakob and you) hanging out, and the focus is on helping you move your photography, your brand and your business forward.

We’ll scout locations, do a photo session with a couple and edit everything together. We’ll chat about the business model we use, about blogging, about clients, about search engine optimization, and so on – we’ll talk shop, basically. The entire lot. We’ll cover any questions you have, and we’ll be open about everything we do.

Details:

The one day workshop is just that: an entire day (9am-5pm, we’ll provide lunch and have breaks throughout) and is meant for any photographer, emerging or established.

We’re offering the workshops on weekdays from February to May, 2012 and they are limited to one person per day (or two, if you’re working as a team).

If you’re from outside of Vancouver, we’ll pick you up when you get here and transport you from A to B, if needed. We’ll also provide you with options for accommodations.

If you’re based outside of Vancouver and would like for us to come to you, that’s fine as well. Additional charges will apply to cover expenses.

Booking:

If you’re interested in booking, or you just want to learn more, fill out this form and we’ll get back to you asap:

Nordica // Workshop

Please don’t hesitate to get a hold of us if you have any questions or thoughts about the workshops. We’re happy to provide you with more information.

Couple’s often ask us about general ideas and thoughts for their weddings. And our answer is pretty much always the same. We’re definitely no experts on weddings per se, but we’ve been to a few by now, and there’s one thing we’ve picked up on: The more real you keep it, the better.

Don’t put in a big effort just to be someone you’re not for a day.

Make your wedding who you are instead. Whoever that is. It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money to have a rad wedding, as long as the effort is there and you’re being real to yourself.

We’re not sure whether we actually had this discussion with Meg and Adam, but a wedding doesn’t get more real than theirs.

Adam has worked the main part of his life at the farm where the ceremony was held, he proposed to Meg on a berry field nearby, and they basically live inside the reception barn. Well, they don’t, but very close.

Meg and Adam knew exactly what kind of wedding they wanted. They made it their own and it’s pretty safe to say that every single person in that barn had one helluva good night. Mason jars and all.

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.

The Jessica and Karl wedding was originally featured by the pink-haired awesomeness known as Kat over at Rock N Roll Bride.

That wedding has now been picked up by the equally awesome sites A Million Little Details and La Belle Bride.

Thank you to Chantale from La Belle Bride and to Somer from A Million Little Details for putting up this wedding. We tremendously appreciate it!

Check’em out at the links below. And leave a comment or two on their sites if you’re feeling up for it.

La Belle Bride and Million Little Details

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!

Well today a wedding Nordica photographed was featured in this awesome wedding website, which we thought was pretty damn cool.

The wedding was Jessica and Karl from Stockholm, and apparently the ‘Blue Theme’ was attractive enough for Kat from Rock and Roll to use on her very successful website. This is a bit about the UK based Rock and Roll Bride’s site:

Rock ‘n Roll Bride (Noun) A rock ‘n roll wedding is a wedding where the couple actually acknowledge that to plan a good wedding, they have to incorporate themselves and plan what they love for their day.  They laugh in the face of the wedding industry and the wedding magazines that tell them what they need to do to make a ‘good wedding’.

It’s not about being ‘cool’, being a rebel or even thinking of the most unique idea you can, it’s about planning a wedding that reflects you and your partner and declaring your love in your way.

To be featured on this site, you don’t have to be cool.  You don’t have to be ‘out-there’ or ‘offbeat’, you just have to be you ♥

So thanks a bunch Kat for popping us in the mix! We appreciate it and you’ve got one sweet wedding website going on there eh!

This is the wedding featured. And this is where you can find Rock and Roll Bride.

A short while ago, Marc Smith from Amuse Consulting got in contact with us about the celebration that was about to happen at the Sinclair Centre. Turns out this beauty of a building was having its 100 year anniversary (which is pretty ancient in Vancouver terms!) and they had some pretty special plans to get people in the building. Awesome stuff!

So we were asked to join in on the fun and have set up a small ‘retail space’ of sorts in the main foyer of the building (beside the food court). While this is something totally new to us, it’s kind of cool to mingle with people and have people come in and chat with us. So, if you haven’t much to do on your lunch break or whatnot, pop on it!

Ohhhhh yeah. One more thing. We’ve got some killer specials going on this week only as part of our being at the Sinclair Centre. We want to get some bodies in this great building to see how marvelous it is, so here are some specials we’re offering this week only.

If you come into the Sinclair Centre until Friday (on the corner of Granville and Hastings Streets), here’s what we’re offering:

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1) $150 Family Portrait Session (Regular Value: $500)

This outdoor portrait photography session guarantees your family five (5) images that will be in both black and white and colour (so 10 altogether). We will do the shoot at whatever location you choose.

This offer is valid if you book the shoot with us at the Sinclair Center, and from that point, we can select a date for the actual shoot.

2) $100 Social Media Photography Package (Regular Value: $300)

This package will include a quick outdoor photography session with us on any day during our time at the Centre. So you come into the Centre, we will go outside the building to a few of our favourite spots and voilá – you’ll experience the most painless and short photography session of your life!

From this session, you will receive five (5) headshots in both colour and black and white (so 10 altogether), as well as a Twitter account set up for you with a custom background. If you already have a Twitter account, we will make you a customized background. We will do this shoot on the spot, so come down to speak with us!

3) $2000 Wedding Photography + Free Engagement Shoot

Our wedding packages start at $2500 and engagement shoots are priced at $500. However, if you or a couple you know come down to the Sinclair Center and we book a wedding, that is a savings of $1000. Our weddings guarantee 2 photographers, unlimited coverage, minimum of 400 images and images ready within 2 weeks.

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So, we’re hoping that people find the time this week to come in and say hi! And if you’re into getting some awesome photography done, maybe these specials will put you over the top! Some great deals for sure and all you have to do to get them is visit us in the Sinclair Centre!

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The nice thing is people seem to be the most interested in our wedding photography, which is a good thing!

So, we’ve dedicated this post to your questions from Formspring. And remember, you can ask us anything you want over on that site (and can ask questions anonymously if you choose!). Click here to ask us stuff!

If I’m getting married overseas, how do I go about booking you to be our photographers?

Send us an email (please, we love to travel!) and we’ll go over the details.

Jakob is to Brad Pitt as Cole is to _____?

http://ow.ly/1sJHk

What is your post-shoot processing steps? You seem to do a lot of editing and the pictures look great! What are your procedures?

This is something that can’t really be explained in a few sentences. But basically we do some adjustments in Lightroom (WB, cropping, basic editing etc) before opening the picture in Photoshop. In PS we do a variety of things depending on the image.

What is the best part of wedding photography? And worst?

Preparations are usually fun. Not sure there’s a worst part, but sometimes there are somewhat boring parts of the day.

You haven’t really stated on your site how you give proofs to your clients – care to explain?

We use Smugmug. Clients get a password protected gallery where they will find all of their images.

What is your workflow like (with software I mean)….

Nikon – Lightroom – Photoshop.

What lenses do you two use?

A variety of nikon lenses. Mostly primes though.

How would you describe your wedding photography style?

We actually answered that exact question in a Q and A on our blog recently: http://nordicaphotography.com/questions-and-answers-nordica-photography-weddings/
But here goes:

 Probably journalistic. We are at your wedding in the morning and won’t leave until the very end. With two shooters, we hope that our pictures tell the story of your day, which in our interpretation would make the style journalism where the pictures speak for themselves.

 As far as the actual style of the photos go, we love minimalistic, clean shots and we love to play around with colour, light and patterns.

Why don’t you offer different wedding packages

Well, let’s put it like this. In a way you can say that we do offer different packages. But we don’t want to make those packages for you, we want you to make them.

 That’s why we start with a base price, and offer all of our additional services, such as coffee table books or engagement shoots for example, as add-ons. You choose which ever ones you want. 

And we want to keep things simple. That’s why we’re not counting hours. We will be at your wedding as long as you want. It’s all up to you.

 We recommend that you have us for the whole day though, because having pictures from early morning to late evening that actually tells the whole story of your wedding day is so much better than just having photos from a couple of hours.

So you two shoot weddings together – I get that – but when you’re at a wedding, how do you decide between the two of you who does what and what you focus on?

We talk. And we decide on where we are going to be during the wedding. Take the preparations for example. Then one of us can focus on the bride getting ready, while the other one can hang out with the groom and get pictures of his preparations. If there was only one of us, it’d be way harder to get the same coverage.

How far in advance do you book weddings?

We take on bookings anytime, but we prefer to not book any more than a year in advance.

Do you have a hard copy/album of your wedding portfolio?

We could get you one if you were interested! info [at] nordicaphotography.com

Youre based out of Vancouver but do you travle for weddings?

We’ll go anywhere so long as our travel expenses are covered. If that’s the case, we have a prorated rate (we don’t charge our full price is it’s a destination wedding).

Like your logo. How did u come up with it?

1. We wanted something that was kind of like a Nordic flag.
2. We wanted to keep it dead simple but still look cool (so it’d be a good watermark as well).
3. The colours were meant to have a northern sort of cold feeling.

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Well included with the winning package was an engagement shoot, which we did yesterday with the winning couple, Holly and Phillip. Their wedding is coming up in a few weeks, so we’re really looking forward to it!

For today though, here’s a single frame from our time together in and around Gastown yesterday. The pictures turned out great and you two were fantastic, Holly  and Phillip! See you in a couple weeks!

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