Heath + Jenn (Video)

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!

Sneak Peek: Bangladesh

I wish we could take you with us sometime. Really, I do. Because I think that traveling to the heart of the "other," to places that grab us by our roots and pull us up, shaking the dirt off of what we've held as preconceived notions and letting us breathe in a little "broadening of experience," is what a lot of us need, quite regularly. 

This last November we had the honor of filming in Bangladesh for roughly a week, hearing the life stories of those who have chosen to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ in a country where Islam is the state religion. It is not a safe decision, but for them, it means everything. Rarely have either of us ever felt such a sense of joy in the people whose lives we were documenting, and as we work (now back at home in Chicago) to finish the video we are both humbled and grateful to be a part of telling the story.

And so, since we couldn't take you with us (and due to the sensitive nature of the work, we won't be able to post the finished video), this is our best attempt at bringing you along anyways: some of our favorite footage from our time in Bangladesh. Enjoy!

New Year, New Look!

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.