and nude subject (Twinka) as the model hesitantly
peeks out from behind a tree, encountering or con-
fronting the photographer.
In 1971, Dater and Welpott married, and their
professional and personal lives intertwined further
with their most significant collaboration: the 1975
publication of photographs, Women and Other
Visions. This collaboration occurred amidst the
1970s feminist movement and culminated in a series
of photographs of women taken by both Dater and
Welpott. This event resulted in identifying the differ-
ences between the two artists’ styles and effects on
their nude subjects, read specifically in the socio-
sexual context of the time. Dater deduced that
when she was the photographer, the female subjects
emitted a certain self-realization. Focusing vigilantly
on the photo shoot’s time and place, Dater selected
the photograph’s precise moment while also care-
fully observing her subjects’ expressions and body
language. She aimed to reveal an inner emotion in
her women sitters; an image that could invoke what
the sitter felt about her relationship to the photogra-
pher. This project reinforced that Dater’s style
focused on the psychological elements of a portrait
rather than the aesthetics or singularity of the sub-
ject. The clothes, environment, face, and body
appeared to disconnect with the subject’s inner psy-
che. Dater’s interest in the action of revealing
reduced the body to a part, rather than the whole,
of the image. This implied that the whole could not
be viewed without acknowledging the exchange
between the viewer and the subject.
In contrast, the women of Welpott’s photo-
graphs have been described as noticeably aware
of their bodies. For Dater, this self-awareness re-
duced the possibility of expressing psychological
elements that do not stem from the sexual or sen-
sual. Welpott’s subjects appeared to project an
image of themselves, rather than exposing the rea-
lity of themselves.
After divorcing Welpott in 1977, Dater began
exploring the use of color photography. Her first
color photographs were taken during a trip to
Egypt between 1979 and 1980. The resulting images
placed emphasis on the aesthetics of color and
contrast in relationship to the subject’s psyche.
The images from this period included many of
daily life and landscape, while others are portraits
of surprising depth in Dater’s exchanges with unfa-
miliar faces. While focusing on the changes that
color photography brought to her work, Dater
continued to draw inner emotion from her sponta-
neous encounters with Egyptian subjects.
The 1980s welcomed strong recognition for
Dater throughout the United States and Europe.
Her consistent inquiry into the elements of per-
formance and character studies continued to
broaden her body of work. She moved to New
Mexico in 1980 with her partner, artist Sam
Samore, and began looking at herself as a subject,
developing works that portrayed herself as a vari-
ety of female archetypes. Like Cindy Sherman,
Dater’s self-portraits examined the full embodi-
ment of social stereotypes, acknowledging the
body’s role in social exchanges. The series of
photographs from 1982 includesMs. Clingfreeas
the sexy housewife,Leopard Womanas the carnal
vamp, and The Magician as the woman who
works miracles. Studying these female archetypes,
Dater engaged in an exchange of control as both
the photographer and as the subject. Dater per-
formed in a self-designed environment, offering
her body and character only as much as, or pos-
sibly as far as, the camera and photographer
would allow. Other self-portraits depict a nude
Dater, returning to the idea that the body is only
a part, not the whole, of any exchange, event, or
environment. Her nude self-portrait sequence,
also from 1982, shows Dater’s body as an active
object among the desert landscape of New Mex-
ico, recalling the earth performances of artist Ana
Mendieta. In acknowledging the complex psy-
chological elements of self-realization and the re-
lationship between photographer and subject,
Dater produced photographs of unshakable char-
acter. In 1983, she returned to San Francisco and
continued exploring new technologies of photo-
graphy. In 1996, Dater toured the world for her
30-year retrospective,Cycles.
HeatherBlaha
Seealso:Cunningham, Imogen; Nude Photography;
Portraiture; Welpott, JackBiography
Born in Hollywood, California, 21 June 1941. Studied draw-
ing and painting at University of California, Los Angeles,
1959–1963; Studied photography at San Francisco State
University, 1963–1966; Received MA in Photography,- Instructor at University of California Extension,
San Francisco, 1966–1974; Instructor at San Francisco
Art Institute, 1974–1978; Guest Instructor at Kansas City
Art Institute, 1985; Instructor at International Center of
Photography, New York, 1987–1990; Instructor at San
Francisco Art Institute, 1992–1994; Instructor at Univer-
sity of California Extension, San Francisco, 1996–1997;
Instructor at San Jose City College, San Jose, California,
1996–1997. Dorothea Lange Award, Oakland Museum,
Oakland, California, 1974. Associated with Witkin Gal-
lery, New York, early 1970s. National Endowment for the
Arts, Individual Artist Grant, 1976; Guggenheim Fellow-
ship, 1978; Marin Arts Council Individual Artist Grant,
DATER, JUDY