CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORrHRI:OOE
THROUGH THE PHOTOGRAPH n
An abstract submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in
Art by
Dinah Berland Portner
"'<,>/'
June, 1979

The Abstract of Dinah Berland Portner is approved:
McMillan, Advisor
Kenon Brea'l)al
California State University, Northridge ii

to
Stephen Axelrad
H. Terry Braunstein
Jessica and Rebecca iii

TABLE OF CONT:ENTS
Abstract
Plates: Group One
Untitled, 1978 (2 prints)
Untitled, 1978 (2 prints)
Untitled, 1978 (2 prints)
Plates: Group Two
Untitled, 1979 (2 prints)
Untitled, 1979 (2 prints)
Untitled, 1979 (1 print)
Page
v vii
2
3
4
7
8 iv

ABSTRACT
THROUGH THE PHOTOGRAPH by
Dinah Berland Portner
Master of Arts in Art
The photograph is a two-dimensional vehicle for transporting the mind into three-dimensional space and back again. Through the photograph, I can gather, transmit and receive believable information about the physical world while simultaneously giving substance to my imagination and raising questions about the nature of visual perception.
In the work presented here, I have attempted to exploit the believability of the photograph in order to express nonvisual experiences. I have used the human figure as the primary reality reference as well as an object of personal identification. The figure represents that which we know and experience most directly as threedimensional and real, although the photographic space that it occupies v

is held flat. The task of the figure in these photographs is to respond in some way to that contradictory space and the barriers imposed upon it from within and without, just as my task as a photographer is to find some resolution between my internal perceptions and their external manifestation.
In the first group of pictures, I was interested in exploring the relationship between the figure and the geometric form. After making a series of photographs with figures on squares of grass, I then began to choreograph the interaction of the figure with an imaginary plane. In the darkroom, I made that plane visible on the surface of the paper. This semi-transparent rectangle became no more or less real for me than any other piece of photographic information present in the picture, even though the geometric shape was produced by light in the darkroom long after the picture was taken and not by light reflected from any physical object. As the figures seem to move through or push against this dark barrier, they are pushing up against a phantom reality, a level of existence that is both as abstract and as real as their own.
In the second and more recent group of pictures, the relationship of the figure to a separate surface within the photographic space became more ambiguous. Here I often tore rather than cut out the masked shape and used the resulting transparent plane to convey a sense of suspension or release from spatial and gravitational confinement. These images have their roots in fantansy, emotion and meditation, although they are not intended as metaphors for any single mental or emotional state. They spring from attitudes about vi

our connection to the earth, entrapment and emergence, substance and sensation. They are, for me, a way of actualizing that which I can only glimpse through fleeting spaces in my consciousness.
Technical note: The original prints from which the following reproductions were made are 11" X 14 11 black and white silver prints, manipulated in the darkroom through the techniques of masking and burning, then hand-tinted with Marshall's photo-oil pencils. They are untitled. vii

PLATES
Group One
1

2

3

4

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PLATES
Group Two
5

6

7

8