Weddings & Elopements
Full-day and intimate ceremonies across the Blue Ridge and beyond. Unobtrusive coverage, honest moments, and a hand-bound album to finish the story.
From $3,200 · 12 weddings per year
Asheville, North Carolina
Light, land, and the people in between.
Landscape, portrait, and wedding photography by Mara Ellison — made slowly, printed to last, and rooted in the mountains of Western North Carolina.
The Studio
Photographs that hold their breath.
I believe the best pictures are rarely the first ones. They come after the light has settled and everyone has stopped performing — the fifth minute of a sunset, not the first. That is the picture I am always chasing, for a ridge line, a couple, or a stranger with a good face.
Selected Work
Recent favourite frames
Services
Three ways to work together
Whatever the format, the promise is the same: unhurried attention, honest colour, and files you will still love in thirty years.
Portrait Sessions
Studio and on-location portraits for artists, founders, and families. Relaxed ninety-minute sessions and images you will actually want to hang.
From $350 · Year-roundPrints & Commissions
Archival pigment prints of my landscape work, plus commissioned pieces for homes, cabins, and hospitality spaces across the Southeast.
Prints from $85 · Commissions by quote
Behind the Camera
Hi, I'm Mara.
I spent eight years as a field biologist before a borrowed camera rearranged my priorities. These days I trade species counts for sunrises, and I still approach every shoot like fieldwork: arrive early, watch quietly, and wait for the moment the subject forgets you're there.
When I'm not on a ridge at 5 a.m., I'm in my Buxton Avenue studio printing, packing orders, and drinking entirely too much coffee.
More about Mara
Let's Work
Have a story worth keeping?
Tell me about it — I answer every message within two business days.
Start a conversation