We love engagement sessions. No lie. Especially when they're in Chicago, and especially when they are at parks or places that hold significance to the couple we are photographing. So taking pictures of these two at Olive Park (where they go on morning runs) and in the downtown area? Dreamy. Here are a few images from Chris and Gina's lovely engagement session, we're so excited for these two (and cannot wait to photograph their wedding next year!).
Happy Friday! What better way to celebrate than with a fun-loving, sunset engagement shoot of Chris and Emily in the beautiful Lincoln Park. We absolutely love it when couples make their shoot their own, and that was exactly what these two running-enthusiasts did. After a fantastic time of taking classic pictures around Cafe Brauer and the Lincoln Park Zoo, they laced up their sneakers and we headed to the lakefront path for some fun, lifestyle photos. Here are a few images from the shoot, we're thrilled for these two lovebirds (and look forward to sharing their upcoming wedding on the blog in a few months!).
To introduce you to Anthony and Carly, I think we just need to start at the end. The ceremony was over, the dancing was just wrapping up, people were roasting s'mores over a bonfire down by Lake Michigan...and the groom was changing his pants so that he and his newlywed bride could wade out into the freezing cold water. Just for fun. Because that's the adventurous joy in life and love you will find in Anthony and Carly.
It was a beautiful, fun-filled wedding at Chicago's Promontory Point on a spring Sunday afternoon, with the sky over Lake Michigan putting on a show in the background. And it was an honor to take part in capturing the marriage of Anthony and Carly, a couple we've known for quite some time, and whose family feels like ours. We hope you enjoy these images from their day as much as we enjoyed taking them!
When one hears the name "Dunham Woods Riding Club" it begins to conjure up images of elegance, class, intimacy, and a sophistication that comes with a long history of good taste. And you would not be far from the truth.
Tim and Tiffany's sunny wedding at Dunham Woods was truly all of those things, and more. From getting ready in the main house's private rooms (that date back to 1932), to portraits around the grounds and inside the private barroom, to dinner overlooking the spacious properties, we couldn't have asked for a more lovely day, or a better couple to photograph. Here are a few of the images from Tim and Tiffany's wedding below. Enjoy!
It's always such an honor when we have the chance to do both the videography and photography for a bride and groom's special day. We love being able to see a creative aesthetic that is consistent throughout the whole day, and to know that we were able to produce that for a couple as a lasting memory.
Last Friday we posted a video from the lovely couple, Heath and Jenn, and their gorgeous Chicago wedding. Below are some of the images we captured throughout the day as well, we hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed taking them!
It's been a bit since we've posted some of our recent video work, but without further ado, here it is! Heath and Jenn got married earlier this spring, and were some of the loveliest people we've ever worked with. It was a laid back, intimate and elegant affair, and to our delight, it was 100% a Chicago wedding: they got ready at the Blackstone Hotel on Michigan Ave., had their first look just south of Grant Park, took photos with the cityscape background at Montrose Harbor, were wed in St. Paul's Lutheran Church, and had their after party at the award-winning Sepia.
It is one of our greatest joys in life to work with people who, you can just tell, truly adore each other, and this day was no exception. We look forward to sharing the photos we took of Heath and Jenn's wedding next week, and hope you enjoy and can see the love we captured between these two in the video below. Cheers to the newlyweds!
I was two years old when I met Blake. Which, I guess if we're going to start doing math, makes him my oldest friend to date. Over 26 years of friendship. I mean, we saw Michael Jordan retire...twice. You don't go through that kind of heartbreak without coming out the other side knowing you'll be friends for life.
About two years ago, in the midst of planning my own wedding, I was thinking through who I wanted to stand by me at the end of the aisle, waiting for my bride to walk down and become Mrs. Nicodem. And the way I looked at it is this: life changes so much. You move, you switch jobs, you move again, you have kids, you have a midlife crisis and get intensely into fly fishing, and then you probably move again. And in each stage there will be people you meet, friends who come into and then fade out of your life. Because that's just the nature of this transitory beast. But what a rarity to have a friend that can look you in the eye (or stand with you on your wedding day), through all of that change, and say "I know you. The place you come from, the things that have made you who you are, the ups and downs of your life story...that's been partly my story too." And sure, there are whole months on end where you may not see each other, where those changes in life may widen the gaps of your communication. But it doesn't even touch the foundations of that kind of friendship because quite simply you've put in too much shared time and life for those gaps to matter. So I asked the guy who has been my friend since diapers to stand with me.
I often thank God that I married a woman I grew up with, for those same reasons. Marianne and I say to each other all the time "you are my Home," and on a very real level what we are saying is quite simply "I know you." That we are each other's safe spot; amidst the craziness and the transitions and the drifting through life, we belong to and can rest in each other. But it's also more than that. In a rudimentary way, "home" also encapsulates where we're from, and where we're from is the same place. It's small town, northern Illinois. It's having the same family doctor as each other since the day we were born. It's middle school band and high school dances. It's being able to say "hey remember so-and-so" and the reply of "yeah...do they still work at Jimmy Johns?!" Home is what makes us who we are, but it is also the place that we're always building for each other. And so we call each other Home because it's this crazy, beautiful fact that even before we became each other's place of safety, even before the love and the romance and the creating of life together, we were being shaped by the same place, the same experiences, the same story. In a way, it feels like we've always been sharing life.
And now I'll get to the point of all this.
A couple weeks ago, we got to hide outside of the middle school band room and watch as Blake proposed to his girlfriend Alaina in the place where they first met. We got to see over 15 years of incredible friendship become the promise of a life together forever. We got to see page one of the next chapter in their love story that started way before they even knew it. And the whole time my mind kept playing ping-pong between "it's about friggin time, we've all been waiting since we were thirteen" and then in the next breath "who would've thought in a million years...Blake and Alaina." Because that's the beauty of their story. It's a story so long in the making that we all saw it coming, but so good in its telling that we can hardly believe it came true.
And as we wandered around the town that has been all of our home since we were kids, Blake and Alaina, and Marianne and I, we got to take pictures of two people who in every way can look at each other and say:
"You are my Home."
Also, just to appease my curious mind: between the four of us (Blake, Alaina, Marianne, and myself), how many years of combined friendship are there? Some of the numbers are rough, but it's fairly accurate (we all knew each other in middle school, but some became friends in high school).
Blake + Andrew = 26yrs
Blake + Marianne = 13yrs
Blake + Alaina = 15yrs
Andrew + Marianne = 15yrs
Andrew + Alaina = 13yrs
Alaina + Marianne = 10yrs
With our powers of friendship combined, we have 92 years of joint affection. Boom.
Happy (almost) summer! For those of you who didn't know, we are halfway through our second year as college professors at Moody Bible Institute in downtown Chicago. Yes, most of the time we get mistaken for students when we're walking around campus. But it's true, for the last three semesters we have been the professors of "Intro to Photography/Photojournalism," and now the exams are finished, the papers are graded, and we're rolling our way into summer (little known fact: most teachers are more excited than their students about the dream of "Summer Break," we just don't let on).
More than just the basics of photography and the theory behind it, we love to give our students real, hands-on interaction with the work we do as freelance photographers at Nicodem Creative. From weddings, to portraiture, to senior photos, to family photos, and even beyond to the international side of our work as photojournalists, becoming a good photographer is all about the hours spent just shooting and processing, and the experience that comes with that. So usually by halfway through the semester we've put the tools in their hands that they need to begin shooting, and then we simply create a series of real photography scenarios for them to watch us photograph, and then participate in photographing themselves.
Our family shoot this semester was with our sweet friends Justen, Candis, and their little guy. It isn't easy to be in front of the camera and have 12 people watching you and photographing your every move, but this family rocked it! Here are some images from our class on family portraiture, hope you enjoy!
Can I start with a story? Or rather, a back-story.
Two years ago, a boy (Me, Andrew) and a girl (Marianne) sat at a dusty, wooden table in the heat of rural Uganda. Madly in love, and doing the work we loved, together. We had gotten engaged a few months earlier, but I was still on assignment as a photojournalist for another six months abroad, so we made do with occasional visits, choppy Skype dates, and a whole lot of dreaming of the future. Our future.
So we decided, right there and then, to start our own photography and videography business. Because hey, why wouldn't we want to spend every waking minute together, doing what we loved? And where better to make really important life decisions than the bush in Africa, exhausted and all sweaty? We drew up a logo, whipped together a site, and for the past two years have been living this crazy ride called Nicodem Creative.
And it has been amazing. Challenging, mind-blowing, joyful and tear-filled (mostly on my part).
But we realized, in the crush of it all, that with this gaining momentum what we really needed was some added direction. Like that first, tentative step out onto the ice, we've realized that it's going to hold and we need to decide what to do now that we're out on it. So we hunkered down for a few days this last summer, we dreamed, we schemed, we talked about where we've been and where we want to go, and we've come out swinging, ready for what's next!
So welcome to the new and improved Nicodem Creative. Take a look around, we hope you like what you see. But know this: while the surface has gotten a make-over, the heart behind it remains the same. To give the world around us its beautiful due, and tell stories that are truly life-changing.
We are Nicodem Creative. And we've started dreaming anew.
