Anne Zahalka has developed a significant reputation for staging photographic compositions that reference and critique visual culture, particularly Australian visual culture and the history of art. The ‘The Bathers’ is part of Zahalka’s renowned series, Bondi: Playground of the Pacific (1989), which was created during a six-month residency at the Bondi Pavilion. The series is made up of staged portraits showing people at the beach. The majority of the images incorporate painted backgrounds and some use appropriation. This work directly refers to Charles Meere’s iconic painting 'Australian beach pattern' (1938–40). Zahalka has used the same composition as the painting and changed the characters to explore cultural diversity. By doing this, Zahalka was aiming to alter the stereotypical view of Australian culture, exploring its diversity and challenging traditional representations of the beach.
(2016)
Chromogenic prints are printed on paper that has at least three emulsion layers containing invisible dyes and silver salts. Each emulsion layer is sensitive to a different primary colour of light (red, green or blue). The development process converts the hidden dyes to visible colour depending on the amount of light it was exposed to. This type of paper is commonly used to print from colour negatives or digital files to produce a full-colour image. It can also be used to print black-and-white images, giving softer grain and less contrast than gelatin silver prints. Commonly known as c-type prints, chromogenic processing was developed in the 1940s and widely used for colour printing, including for domestic snapshots. While recent years have seen this process accompanied by ink-jet and digital printing technologies, chromogenic printing still remains in use to this day.