Colorado Springs Wedding Photographer | Wedding Photographers Colorado Springs | Weddings, Engagements and lifestyle photography by Carly Mitchell

‘trees stand tall, they don’t falter’ – to the mamas

carly — Fri, 11 May 2012 20:37:43 +0000

i’m not a mom but i’m surrounded by a bunch of really good ones – particularly mine. if you’re a mom or almost a mom or pining to be a mom or just love your mom or love and miss your mom, please accept this big huge fat thank you for all of the care you pump into the world. it needs it.
love you, mama.

i took these images of sweet bubba gabriel and his mama ashley a couple of weeks ago and thought they were the perfect images to celebrate this weekend of celebrating moms.

{theresa andersson: birds fly away}
carly mitchell | wedding & lifestyle photography | colorado springs * denver * boulder

‘i’ll keep aiming for the even road’ – me & them

carly — Tue, 08 May 2012 15:09:46 +0000

i just returned from another top weekend with these people, my oldest friends. we are each other’s everything: counselor, stylist, opponent, encourager, aggravator, caretaker, shoulder, reminder, cheer section, entertainer, judge, maid, chef, teacher, confidant, defender.

all that adds up to define sisters and chosen family members. life would be so flat without them. i’m so so thankful.

{javier dunn: through the dark}

carly mitchell | wedding & lifestyle photography | colorado springs * denver * boulder

‘everything is brilliant and nothing hurt’ – ryan & alli, engaged

carly — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:37:51 +0000

there are people who enter your life who are cool, and there are people who enter your life who are seriously cool.
ryan & alli belong squarely in the latter category.
these two were sent to me by baby carter’s parents (also in the second category), and i love them forever for the referral. there’s zero pretense with these two. alli showed me her $15 shoes and i showed her my $12 pants. to change locations, we all hopped in ryan’s decade-old yellow Xterra, rife with the windshield cracks only carried by those who care more about playing and less about appearances. they’re a gorgeous couple in that effortless sort of way. i loved how they both were a touch sun burned from her morning run and his morning bike ride (though they may be getting sunscreen in bulk from me as a wedding present).
what did they want in their engagement photos? beer and mountains.
done and done.

the first half of these photos were taken at trinity brewing company, my (and alli & ryan’s) favorite colorado springs brewery. great light, yummy beer and super nice people. win-win-win.
i’m headed to california for a little while for work and reenergizing. be back with new photos in a couple of weeks!!

{rosi golan: everything is brilliant}

carly mitchell| wedding & lifestyle photography | colorado springs*denver*boulder

‘i hope this gets to you’ – moms, 2012

carly — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 04:45:31 +0000

{the daylights: i hope this gets to you}

‘holding on to you holding on to me’ – linds, pregs

carly — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 22:20:14 +0000

for those of you who follow me on facebook, you’re aware of the nothing-short-of-ridiculous drama surrounding this very website this week. the long and the short of it is, i blogged on monday, noticed my website was down, made a call, made a change and then poof! everything was gone. i truly thought there wasn’t any hope, due to confusing and conflicting reports from various people trying to help (but who were in fact hurting with their help). but, thanks to a rad man in dallas who is now my official best friend, today everything came back. i also am the first to say that in retrospect, my technical ignorance caused me to completely overreact, and i now look several shades of crazy. but, frankly, i’d rather be crazy with a website than sane without a website. almost losing this thing made me realize how much i value it. i’m so incredibly grateful it’s back, but these words i wrote very early wednesday morning in the throws of hopelessness remain true:

“…as I get further from the initial shock that it is all gone, there is a welling feeling of excitement for the chance at a clean slate. Some of you know I have been working on rebranding for too many months now, but as long as my now vanished site existed, I didn’t have quite as much fire to get it done as I could have. It’s no secret what greatness necessity can breed, and I no longer have the luxury to hem and haw over my new direction. Getting clear on who I am and what I’m saying to the world is far overdue. It’s almost as if my site’s disappearance was a very loud “time’s up” from the universe (if the universe is in fact some sort of obnoxious test administrator).

Maybe a lost website is actually a permission slip to be myself.

The old site was adorable and whimsical, but it was ultimately distracting and sending the wrong message. It was built at a time when I was all but physically clawing myself away from a dark newspaper job, and I admittedly took the cute too far. The new site will be cleaner and have more space for me to be me. I love all things lovely, happy and free (those are my three brand words, and the words I focus on going into every shoot), but I’m also a little bit moody and snarky. In my real life, there are far fewer exclamation points than the old carly mitchell photography suggested. I also curse like a truck driver, much to my mother’s chagrin. I need it to be ok for a bit of those things to come through in the new space I’ll build. I’m certain it’s possible for prettiness and sarcasm and sentiment and wit and joy to co-exist, because they do within me. I think I’ve earned enough distance between journalism and now to start writing again. A new site will be a lovely place to try.

Maybe it’ll be a lot like this lengthy farewell to a website passed, only maybe not as lengthy, or at least hopefully on subjects funnier and/or more important than a website passed.”

for now, though, i’m thrilled to have a space to continue sharing my latest work, including these of my cute sister who is carrying her fourth babe, a boy due in june. she and her hubs make gorgeous, hilarious, spunky little spuds, and the whole fam can’t wait to see what sort of laughter and joy this little one will bring to our lives.

{mat kearney: all i need}

‘we’ll meet again soon’ – a cmp psa

carly — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:17:27 +0000

if you’re going to park your perfectly-restored, classic vw bug on an adorable street beneath a blooming crab apple tree, you’re pretty much begging me to lean someone up against it.

you’ve been warned.

more of my pretty, preggo sister soon.

{of monsters and men: little talks}

carly mitchell | wedding & lifestyle photography | colorado springs * denver * boulder

‘a quiet life, a fixture, a tight frame’ – the wallaces

carly — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 21:07:03 +0000

glenn and chelsea’s wedding was one of my first after opening up this little enterprise. they have since added to the family baby rhett, who at 5-months-old looks a whole lot his gorgeous big sister lily, who is 7 going on 23 (a spitfire, that one; a girl after my own heart). i can’t fully express how fully special it makes me feel to have been asked to paint a picture of what this family looked like on a particularly warm and sunny march afternoon, when lily was in full spring break mode and glenn got off work early to play with his family.

the best photographs are born from relationship. it’s why i am so insistent upon getting to know my clients as much as possible before i even pick up the camera. it’s why so many of my best work comes from don’t blink projects and from shooting my own family. and it’s why i can call up so many of my former clients and coordinate a happy hour. i’m filthy rich in the friendships this passion of mine has created. color me the luckiest girl in the world.

glenn, chelsea, lily and rhett: thank you for your willingness, enthusiasm and continued support (and the glass of red )!! it’s wonderful to watch your family grow and change. i can’t wait to see what’s next for you all.

{lost lander: dig}

carly mitchell | wedding & lifestyle photography | denver * boulder * colorado springs

‘let some sun in’ – carter, 6 mo.

carly — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:25:57 +0000

mark, lauren, carter and i took advantage of one of the many unseasonably warm days recently to document carter at 6-months-old outside his house. there’s a sweet little personality blossoming there for sure. and by that i mean he’s practicing wielding his big brown eyes against the world for years to come.

good luck telling him no, mark & lauren. seriously, good luck with that

these photos are second in a bi-monthly series of photos i affectionately call a “don’t blink project.” to see carter at 4-months-old, click here.

{rabbit!: life is sweet}

carly mitchell photography | colorado wedding & lifesty

‘take it all in’ – marin, 1-year

carly — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 21:42:15 +0000

you guys, i am currently in a state of denial that these are the last photos of this sweet family that i’ll take for awhile. after a year with lennon, a 6-month break, and then a year with marin, it feels so strange to not have them on my calendar for next month.

lauren, kenny, lennon and marin: there aren’t enough variations of “thank you” to express the depths of my gratitude for your support over the past 2.5 years. i can say without hesitation my little business wouldn’t be half of what it is today without you. thank you for letting me into your home and your lives every single month, and for not kicking me out when i wanted to move furniture or put holes in the walls. thank you for valuing photography and the importance of documenting your sweet girls as they grow. thank you. thank you.

the par-tay:

tomorrow, a full look back from the start, which was here

7 votes

these photos are last in a series documenting marin’s first year i affectionately call a “don’t blink project.” to see last month’s photos, click here. to see marin’s big sister’s don’t blink project, click here.

{aidan knight: eyelid clicks}

‘let’s set the world on fire’ – megan, headshots

carly — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 16:49:31 +0000

you know what i super love about headshots? well, two things. it requires that i fit my creativity into a certain space, which is a fun challenge. but it’s mostly that i get to create a tool for another artist through which he or she will get to go out and create more art.

and the world needs us all to create more, right?

megan is a lovely young actor who will use these shots in her applications to art programs this summer. best of luck!!

{fun.: we are young}

carly mitchell photography | denver*colorado springs wedding and lifestyle photography