Occupying the space of both art and artifact, photography has become one of the most influential forms of expression in world history. Fluent in every language, speaking more than a thousand words in every frame, the photograph’s ability to transcend time and space makes it an extremely supple too. But like all technological inventions, the perspectives and prejudices of its makers play an important part in shaping its abilities and development. Invariably, racial bias has long played a role.
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With the creation and mass market distribution of color film in the mid-1950s, lab technicians established a system for calibrating skin tones that would enhance and flatter the features of their target market: white women. Until 1954, Eastman Kodak maintained a monopoly until the federal government asserted their power to break it up — but by then the damage had been done. Kodak produced the Shirley card, a prototype that would be remade for decades to come that featured a pale brunette as the gold standard for calibrating the light and shadow on skin tones during the printing process.
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If you didn’t match these aesthetics, color film was unlikely to flatter you, especially if you possessed deeper, darker skin tones. writer Syreeta McFadden remembers seeing the evidence of photography’s color bias. “I was 12 years old and paging through a photo album…. In some pictures, I am a mud brown, in others I’m a blue black,” she wrote in a story for BuzzFeed News. “Some of the pictures were taken within moments of one another. ’You look like charcoal,’ someone said, and giggled. I felt insulted, but I didn’t have the words for that yet.”
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