This photograph was taken while Olive
Cotton was working as a photographer’s assistant at Max Dupain’s Bond Street Studio in Sydney. She worked there from 1934–40 and during this time also pursued her own practice, producing some of her most well-known images. This image reflects her interest in light, shadow and modernist geometric compositions. The idea behind its creation was a playful one. Cotton had purchased new teacups for the studio office and, in laying them out on the table, thought their handles looked like arms and together they were like ballerinas. She arranged them carefully on a board, then backlit them to accentuate their shadows. She felt the teacup in the foreground, with its handle facing in the opposite direction, acted as the ballet instructor. This was the first of Cotton’s photographs to be exhibited overseas, featuring in the London Salon of Photography in 1935. It has become one of her most well-known works.
(2016)
Gelatin silver prints are black-and-white photographic prints that have been created using papers coated with an emulsion of gelatin and light-sensitive silver salts. After the papers are briefly exposed to light (usually through a negative), a chemical developer renders the latent image as reduced silver, which is then fixed and washed. This technique was first introduced in the 1870s and is still used today. Most twentieth-century black-and-white photographs are gelatin silver prints. They are known for being highly detailed and sharply defined prints with a distinguishable smooth, even image surface.
