Sarah Lewis thinks photography's history is racist (NYT)

[HonorableSensor]

I hesitate to post this since I don't believe her argument is even remotely close to the truth and it may be seen as flamebait.  Given her network of contacts, the author could have very easily found a color scientist to speak with, but didn't.

However, given the popularity of this article (which I have seen on various non-photography sites) it might be good to know about it, since, friends and family might bring up the claims made by the author.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/lens/sarah-lewis-racial-bias-photography.html

[faberryman]

It's an old argument. I remember it from 20 or 30 years ago. It resurfaces from time to time. Recycled work as epiphany. It would have been better if she had focused on the contributions of underappreciated black photographers.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

It is a long article, and behind a paywall for some. The Left, most academia included, already think everything is racist. Can you summarize her argument?

[HonorableSensor]

It is a long article, and behind a paywall for some. The Left, most academia included, already think everything is racist. Can you summarize her argument?

The writer starts with an image of a Shirley card, having a white woman and the color-checker squares on it, then asks: "Can a photographic lens condition racial behavior? " 

====
We have a problem. Your jacket is lighter than your face,” the technician said from the back of the one-thousand-person amphitheater-style auditorium. “That’s going to be a problem for lighting.” She was handling the video recording and lighting for the event.
It was an odd comment that reverberated through the auditorium, a statement of the obvious that sounded like an accusation of wrongdoing. Another technician standing next to me stopped adjusting my microphone and jolted in place. The phrase hung in the air, and I laughed to resolve the tension in the room then offered back just the facts: “Well, everything is lighter than my face. I’m black.”
“Touché,” said the technician organizing the event. She walked toward the lighting booth. My smile dropped upon realizing that perhaps the technician was actually serious. I assessed my clothes — a light beige jacket and black pants worn many times before in similar settings.
====

A person making a serious accusation doesn't take the time to understand how metering works...

You should be able to see the article here:  http://archive.is/igUgi

[faberryman]

The first anecdote is the lighting technician (they are taking video of the event) stating matter-of-factly that the jacket is lighter than the woman's face, and that is a problem.  Which the author, being black, takes as an offense, instead of understanding how sensors and metering works...

Light colored clothing is a lighting problem for white people too. The eye is naturally drawn to the lightest object in the frame, so if you want someone focusing on your face (whatever color it is) and not your clothing, don't wear light clothing. That's not to say racism doesn't exist; it is just that this is not a good example of it. Of course it is up to you to decide whether this is a racist remark or a fashion tip. It tells at least as much about you as it does the person making the remark.

[amolitor]

Racism is a word that covers a great deal of territory these days.

She's essentially just going over the same ground that has been covered a bunch of times about the Shirley card (a picture of a white woman) that Kodak distributed to help technicians do color corrections for Kodak films. While she makes mention of the fact that Fuji film did better with non-white people. she leaves unstated the obvious fact that it was formulated by non-white people.

People tend to assume that the world looks like themselves, and when they're devising technology (be if color film, stage lighting, or AI algorithms for detecting faces) they tend to bias the technology so that it works better for people who look like themselves. For a variety of reasons. Given the size of the groups that work on these things, we may assume that it contains a few people who outright despise everyone who looks different, and we may also assume that access to test subjects is also tilted, so there's a large envelope for containing reasons here.

Given that technology is disproportionately developed by white people, and disproportionately not developed by people of African descent, this means that a hell of a lot of technology works badly for people with very dark skin. Sometimes appallingly badly, sometimes only slightly badly, and occasionally there is no detectable bias.

Contemporary usage lumps all this under the label "racism" which you may or may not agree with, but anyways do distinguish the usage of language from the underlying phenomena being talked about.

It is all too common to assume that the word "racism" somehow implies lynching and screeching bigots, but that is simply not contemporary usage.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Thanks for the summary. It just confirms that most of the so-called experts are actually idiots.

[Martin Kristiansen]

Shirley! Forgot about that. Good times.

Article sounds silly. I shoot people of all skin colours. Fact of life where I live. Takes a bit of extra skill. Local black people can be quite light compared to the West Africans who are really very dark. We get a lot of West African models. Shoot a lot of what we call coloureds as well, mixed race people. Kind of honey coloured, easy to make look good. My sister in law is black, quite dark very attractive woman. I find white people the most difficult, especially when the client decides to shoot them with a Nigerian in a white shirt. Was close to impossible back in the days of EPR. Shirley is going to be white where most people are white and that’s how Kodak came up with it I’m sure.

Does that make me racist?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

White wedding dress + black tux is a problem as old as the wedding photography. Films like Portra, with gentler contrast, tried to solve that. Nothing to do with race.

[amolitor]

While it's very tempting to say "well, it's just human nature" or "that's how it is, wot wot?" the fact is that some things don't work as well for some people as they do for other people.

When that happens, the people for whom it doesn't work as well are perfectly reasonable to stand up and ask "hey, can we make this work better for me, and people who look like me?" and they deserve to not be dismissed, especially if the answer is obviously "yes, of course it can be."

[elliot_n]

A more scholarly article (from 2009):

https://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/2196/3069

[faberryman]

I just finished a studio lighting class at my local community college. I had as models, black, white and mixed race individuals, and I thought my Fuji XT2 did an equally good job with all skin tones. I don't remember anyone complaining about skin tone reproduction with their Canon, Nikon and Lumix cameras. Maybe companies are doing better color science today. Nevertheless, I am glad I use an X-Rite Color Checker and not a Shirley card. No sense perpetuating a stereotype.

[OmerV]

According to the article, Kodak was aware that their film did not respond appropriately to darker skinned folks, yet it was the criticism from the chocolate and furniture industries that motivated Kodak to work on its emulsions.

[rabanito]

We have a problem. Your jacket is lighter than your face,” the technician said from the back of the one-thousand-person amphitheater-style auditorium. “That’s going to be a problem for lighting.”

I remember photographing the wedding of two friends of mine
He was a German paleface and she a lady from Uganda.
He was in black and she in white.

Yes that was a problem outdoors, outside the church. The whole zone system.

[Peter McLennan]

Day exterior: group shot, office workers in Zaire (now, Congo)  The Zairois are really dark, as mentioned before.  The guys I was photographing were all wearing white shirts and it was near noon. At the equator.

I was shooting ECO 7252, a reversal Ektachrome stock in 16mm.  ASA 25. Fine-grained and contrasty. 

No reflector available. Worst photographic case I've yet encountered.

[Rob C]

The article simply illustrates that there is hardly a thing that somebody, somewhere, cannot take and turn on its head to be something else: a skewered version of reality.

If the blessed professor knew, the problem is scientific, not racist, but as folks say, to a hammer...

I wouldn't lose any sleep about it.

Rob

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

The article simply illustrates that there is hardly a thing that somebody, somewhere, cannot take and turn on its head to be something else: a skewered version of reality.

If the blessed professor knew, the problem is scientific, not racist, but as folks say, to a hammer...

I wouldn't lose any sleep about it.

Rob

Amen, brother.

It is a “white hare in the snow, black cat in a tunnel” problem, not race. It is 18% gray-card problem, not race. It is academic idiots problem. It is a knee-jerk reaction problem that looks at at the end result and immidiatelly cries “racism,” without understanding the underlying reasons. Ultimately, it is idiots problem, even if Harvard professors. Especially Harvard professors.

[amolitor]

It's all very well to wave it off as a metering problem, but to do so is to indicate that you understand neither modern metering, nor the NYT times.

Metering in today's modern cameras encompasses rather more than taking a reading off a grey card, and the article mentions more things than metering.

The point is not that metering black people is hard. The point is that metering, lighting, AI facial recognition, color science, a host of other things, and all the combinations of these things (like, for instance, metering in modern cameras) tends to work better for white people than for not-white people. This is a bummer for not white people, who would like things to be different.

Look, people on Lula are apparently allowed to bitch about how not all cameras produce DNG files, and how cameras ought to but do not have an ETTR exposure mode, and they are taken seriously. These people would like cameras to work better for them. What, exactly, is wrong then with a dark-skinned person asking that cameras work better for them?

Why do the concerns of dark-skinned people get waved off, while idiotic ideas like "ETTR exposure mode" are taken seriously?

C'mon, people. You're better than this.

[Rob C]

It's all very well to wave it off as a metering problem, but to do so is to indicate that you understand neither modern metering, nor the NYT times.

Metering in today's modern cameras encompasses rather more than taking a reading off a grey card, and the article mentions more things than metering.

The point is not that metering black people is hard. The point is that metering, lighting, AI facial recognition, color science, a host of other things, and all the combinations of these things (like, for instance, metering in modern cameras) tends to work better for white people than for not-white people. This is a bummer for not white people, who would like things to be different.

Look, people on Lula are apparently allowed to bitch about how not all cameras produce DNG files, and how cameras ought to but do not have an ETTR exposure mode, and they are taken seriously. These people would like cameras to work better for them. What, exactly, is wrong then with a dark-skinned person asking that cameras work better for them?

Why do the concerns of dark-skinned people get waved off, while idiotic ideas like "ETTR exposure mode" are taken seriously?

C'mon, people. You're better than this.

You're getting off on the wrong foot. It's not about metering, but about dynamic range. Of course you can adjust your exposure on both film and digital to encompass the zone/tone important to you; just don't expect that being the righteous bro' makes a blind bit of difference to the science: the science and problem in this instance is the difference between dark skin and light clothing. One or the other is gonna come out second-best.

I stick to my opinion: hammer looking for nail. Reversed racialism, perchance?

Take it a step or two backwards into your photographic education: lost detail in highlights is usually more disturbing than lost shadow. Blown highlights grab attention and make things look terrible, even on white skin.

[amolitor]

Rob, god knows I have nothing but love for you! But this hasn't got anything to do with any specific technical detail. It's about the shape of the whole creature here, which is made up of myriad individual technical details, influenced by myriad technical choices.