CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Photography techniques and equipment have changed drastically in the last 50 years. For Cheyenne resident Rita Lowell, however, that hasn’t affected her lifelong passion for photography.
The 65-year-old owner of Rita Lowell Photography has been taking photos since she was a teenager. Lowell’s cameras have documented her adventures in several states and countries and, now, in Cheyenne.
Lowell is the current featured artist at the Cheyenne Botanical Garden. Her second-floor exhibit showcases nature photos taken over the last five years in both Cheyenne and Colorado. The display is free and open to the public Tuesday through Sunday until July 29.
How Lowell got her photographs featured at the gardens was quite simple. She asked.
“The Botanical Gardens is my sanctuary,” Lowell said. “I went in there one day to go in to use the restroom, and a volunteer staff [member] said, ‘Make sure you go to the second floor and see an art show.'”
Local artists are often invited by the garden’s board to host a two-month-long exhibit. When Lowell heard about the opportunity, she met with Guest Experience Coordinator Brandi McKinley to see if she could set up a photo gallery.
Out of the dozens of framed photos mounted on the second-floor hallway, one of her favorites is “Old and Abandoned.” The photo shows a desolate dark red barn surrounded by bare winter trees.
“I like the rustic mix of it, that’s its older and remote,” she said. “It’s not something you see a picture of because most people don’t know where that is.”
Lowell said she likes to capture unique objects that most people wouldn’t notice. An example of this can be seen in her piece “Vintage Hinge,” which shows a close-up of an old hinge from Hereford Ranch in Cheyenne.
Several of her works also spotlight flowers grown inside the greenhouse and noticeable landmarks surrounding the garden’s premises, including “Orchids in the Garden,” which is a photo of an orange and pink potted orchid.
Lifelong Photographer
Lowell’s interest in photography began in high school, when she took a cross-country road trip with her parents and siblings from their New Jersey home to Washington. As the clan drove through farms in Wisconsin, the Tetons in Wyoming and the Badlands in South Dakota, Lowell photographed all of their endeavors on her father’s old Argus C3 camera. When Lowell returned home, she developed the photos and showed them to family and friends.
“When I got back to New Jersey, people were saying what great pictures they were; that I needed to do something with photography,” she said. “So I just kept shooting.”
Her father, who was also an avid photographer, inspired Lowell to pursue nature photography. Growing up with nine children in the house, her father would encourage the family to play outside. Lowell, her older sister and her father would take hiking trips to Mount St. Helen in Washington. The volcanic mountain holds a special place in her heart, Lowell said, and she recreated the trip multiple times throughout her adult years.
“My whole photo journey is pretty much a memoir to my dad; he may not have been the encourager — that’s not the type of person he was — but he did photography … and enjoyed being out in nature a lot,” she said.
Lowell’s passion took her to various places. After graduating from high school, she set up Twin Star Photography, a professional photography business, with a friend. She joined Camp Spears YMCA, a kids camp in Dingmans Ferry, Pennsylvania, as an arts and crafts and photography teacher. In her early 20s, she moved from the East Coast to Arizona, where she worked in a photo lab. A short stint as a photographer for a European camping program followed soon after. Lowell eventually met her husband, a military man, back in Arizona, and went on to take photos wherever he was stationed, including in Israel and South Korea.
In 2018, Lowell moved to Cheyenne to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren. Hoping to establish a sense of self-preservation and a life outside of being a grandmother, Lowell picked up photography again.
“When I moved here and got promoted to grandma, I thought there has to be something else I can do,” she said.
She joined the Cheyenne Camera Club and the city’s Artist Guild. Lowell used to contribute two or three photos a month to the guild’s monthly shows and was once recognized as “Artist of the Month.”
Lowell, who sees herself as the last of a “dying breed of free spirit,” said photography allows her to share her gift with others. Opportunities to showcase her work, like in the Botanical Gardens, is a stepping stone for advancing her passion, she said.
“I’m a pretty spiritual person and I believe [photography] a gift that I’m blessed with,” she said. “I just want to share that with the world. … The best thing about it is hearing from people who really appreciate seeing what I’ve done and my adventures. I’m a very adventurous person. If there’s a road, well, I’m going to go down it and find things that I’d like to capture.”
