When Terri Loewenthal creates one of her photographic artworks, a bystander might wonder what on earth is happening — that is, should the rarest of chances lead an intrepid hiker to the ultra-remote locations she selects. On her Mamiya 645, a medium-format professional-quality camera that enables her to view her compositions through the lens and shoot with film or digitally, Loewenthal affixes what she guardedly calls “my homemade customizable contraption, an optical tool with a lot of moving parts.” She continually adjusts the device, adding layers of different colors and reflections to what she sees through the viewfinder. Hours may pass before she’s ready to expose the image. “It’s a very long process in which I consider what I’m looking at, what the light is doing, the cloud cover, the precipitation,” she continues. “And I’m also choosing colors that are very much indicative of how I’m feeling in that moment.” At long last, she’ll find herself sufficiently moved to press the camera’s shutter just one single time.
