I'm Nikki van Diermen and I am a wedding + lifestyle photographer based in the beautiful Cape Town, South Africa. I spent a decade working in fashion as a trend researcher + consulant before I made my side hustle my full-time career. Photography found its way into my life just before my husband and I made the decision to try have a child. We both decided to chose one thing that we have always wanted to do but hadn't made room for it in our individual lives. It was at that point that I bought myself my first DSLR camera and started to study photography after hours. I did this not knowing where is would take me just knowing that I have always been drawn to it. In retrospect, it was like the universe had always planned for me to land up where I am now.
I love documentary photography and this is embedded into my style when I work. I use natural movement and dramatic lighting to create a cinematic mood in my imagery. My approach to weddings is simple. To capture everything I see, in the most artful way possible. You never know when a great moment is about to happen, so I make sure to always have my camera by my side ready to photograph these fleeting moments. If you take a look through my portfolio, you’ll see a collection with some of my favourite images I’ve taken over the years.
You can also have a read through some of the kind words that my past couples have had to say about me. So many of my couples have become life-long friends, as I continue to document their love stories and growing families through my lifestyle photography.
What is the meaning behind my logo? Well, I'm so glad you asked. My journey so far with photography has been very deep and very meaningful. I've always been a creator. Art has always been my passion. When I fell pregnant with my daughter Eve, it really was the ultimate creative experience I could ever imagine. It was the catalyst for something that, to be honest, I never saw coming. Slowly but surely, once having her, I started to feel connected to something that I had never felt before. Call it listening to my intuition, or 6th sense, I started to listen to an inner voice that I had always heard, but never really acted on. Syncronicities in my life started manifesting and I knew I was on the right track. Like a magnet, I was drawn to photographing the human emotion. How immediately you can communicate a feeling through visuals was incredible. The day I second-shot my first wedding with my lovely friend + talented photographer, Tess Barnes, I just knew I had found my place. Weddings also worked so well alongside the pregnancy + family newborn photography that I initially started working with. I was photographing the circle of life. Okay, now that you have a bit of a back story, lets bring it back to to logo. The image used was based on Botticelli's Birth of Venus. I chose to use a representation of venus for various reasons. The obvious one is that she is the Roman goddess that represents love, beauty, fertility, prosperity + victory. The not so obvious reasons are that she represents me finding a connection with myself, my own inner strength, my connection to the universe, to something mystical and magical, something that I have come to understand through pursuing my incredible love for photography. Once I had got it into in my head that Botticelli's venus was going to be the starting point inspiration, I booked a very special wedding in Florence, Italy and just to end all this off, you want to know where in the world Sandro Botticelli's original painting is hanging?...
So if my work and the sentiment behind it speaks to you, please be in touch, I'd love to be able to have the opportunity to create something beauitful with you, for you to keep forever.