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I only skimmed the piece but from my skim it had some undertones of "institutionalized racism in the camera industry". In particular: > ... And that’s because

I only skimmed the piece but from my skim it had some undertones of "institutionalized racism in the camera industry". In particular: > ... And that’s because, even if we think of the camera as a neutral technology, it is not. In the vast spectrum of human colors, photographic tools and practices tend to prioritize the lighter end of that range. And that bias has been there since the very beginning. And that bit is in the intro portion of the article, making me think that it's part of the premise that the camera is "not a neutral technology".

makeitdouble 5y ago
You are right, in that the article doesn't see camera (or any technology really) as neutral. For those not familiar with 99pi, the focus is on how makers/designers make choices that can often be invisible to us, but influence the environment we live on. This is a fantastic podcast I would recommend to anyone curious about the world we live in. It has biases, but they are stated and argumented, not just thrown around irresponsibly. In this specific case, there was two specific angles: - the film industry as a whole didn't really care about diversity, and film dynamic range was deemed good enough if it could represent lighter flesh tones and bright surroundings. Kodak exec is quoted on this subject as really not giving a damn about darker skins, and their rationale for making efforts to expend dynamic range a lot further was to allow better representation of white and dark chocolate products, among others. You might disagree with that take, but it all comes from Kodak employees from that area, as far as I understand. - the other was on print calibration: whatever you did with your camera, printing at a Kodak shop would be done with presets setting adjusted for light tone skins (the "Shirley cards" of the title are the photos of white girls used as reference) Here again, the info comes from technician working on printing at the time. PS: Then there's more stories on group photos, light meters etc. if you care at all I would recommend listening to the whole thing. I also do photography (as an amateur) and it was still interesting to me.

makeitdouble 5y ago

You are right, in that the article doesn't see camera (or any technology really) as neutral. For those not familiar with 99pi, the focus is on how makers/designers make choices that can often be invisible to us, but influence the environment we live on. This is a fantastic podcast I would recommend to anyone curious about the world we live in. It has biases, but they are stated and argumented, not just thrown around irresponsibly. In this specific case, there was two specific angles: - the film industry as a whole didn't really care about diversity, and film dynamic range was deemed good enough if it could represent lighter flesh tones and bright surroundings. Kodak exec is quoted on this subject as really not giving a damn about darker skins, and their rationale for making efforts to expend dynamic range a lot further was to allow better representation of white and dark chocolate products, among others. You might disagree with that take, but it all comes from Kodak employees from that area, as far as I understand. - the other was on print calibration: whatever you did with your camera, printing at a Kodak shop would be done with presets setting adjusted for light tone skins (the "Shirley cards" of the title are the photos of white girls used as reference) Here again, the info comes from technician working on printing at the time. PS: Then there's more stories on group photos, light meters etc. if you care at all I would recommend listening to the whole thing. I also do photography (as an amateur) and it was still interesting to me.