Mary Anne Mitchell was born and raised in Atlanta, GA. She lives by the quote of Henri Cartier Bresson, “To take a photograph is to align the head, the eye, and the heart. It is a way of life.”

Mary Anne is a graduate of the University of Georgia, where she earned a BFA in photography in 1982. She has been working as a photographer in Atlanta, GA for the past twenty years. Her work has appeared at City Gallery East and the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center. In addition to commercial work for corporate and gallery clients, she has continually photographed diverse landscape and culture in her extensive travels. These include the recent series of Lowcountry images, as well as scenes from the West coast of the Unites States, Hawaii, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and Portugal.

Mary Anne Mitchell is a purist in the dying art of film photography. Each of her photographs is hand printed in her darkroom, and hand toned to give it a distinct vintage appearance. The technique of her current work involves a film sensitive to all light, including infrared and manipulating it to achieve the grainy ethereal quality, after which she incorporates the sepia toning of each print.

The Sanctuary Project began in mid 2004 when the interior architects, Hirsch/Bedner & Associates, approached Mitchell to photograph the area in the hopes of capturing in black and white the timeless quality of the Carolina Lowcountry.  The entire project was completed by the end of 2004, with close to 200 prints having been produced.  The images are now a permanent collection of The Sanctuary Resort and line all of the guest hallways.