Color film was built for white people. Here's what it did to dark skin.
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- čas přidán 17. 09. 2015
- The unfortunate history of racial bias in photography.
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For decades, the color film available to consumers was built for white people. The chemicals coating the film simply weren't adequate to capture a diversity of darker skin tones. And the photo labs established in the 1940s and 50s even used an image of a white woman, called a Shirley card, to calibrate the colors for printing.
Concordia University professor Lorna Roth has researched the evolution of skin tone imaging. She explained in a 2009 paper how the older technology distorted the appearance of black subjects:
"Problems for the African-American community, for example, have included reproduction of facial images without details, lighting challenges, and ashen-looking facial skin colours contrasted strikingly with the whites of eyes and teeth."
How this would affect non-white people seemingly didn't occur to those who designed and operated the photo systems. In an essay for Buzzfeed, writer and photographer Syreeta McFadden described growing up with film that couldn't record her actual appearance:
"The inconsistencies were so glaring that for a while, I thought it was impossible to get a decent picture of me that captured my likeness. I began to retreat from situations involving group photos. And sure, many of us are fickle about what makes a good portrait. But it seemed the technology was stacked against me. I only knew, though I didn’t understand why, that the lighter you were, the more likely it was that the camera - the film - got your likeness right."
Many of the technological biases have since been corrected (though, not all of them, as explained in the video above). Still, we often see controversies about the misrepresentation of non-white subjects in magazines and advertisements. What are we to make of the fact that these images routinely lighten the skin of women of color?
Tools are only as good as the people who use them. The learned preference for lighter skin is ubiquitous in many parts of the world, and it starts early. That's an infinitely tougher problem than improving the color range of photo technology.
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I can’t believe it took chocolate and wood for people to address this issue
"Chocolate and Wood" - sounds like a 70s funk/ soul group.
Why can't you believe it? Nothing changes until there's money to make or save
That's because it didn't change because of "chocolate and wood".
Did you read the actual study that this is based on?
Have you ever looked up Lorna Roth?
The chocolate and wood companies needed that for practical business purposes. A small percentage of the people not looking as good in photos is just a matter of pure aesthetics. Not nearly as important. Only a selfie obsessed, shallow and vain social media dweller would make a big deal out of that.
@@EvilRyuGuy
Here's the catch, though:
The "chocolate and wood' usage of the film industry is so small compared to the rest of it that its ridiculous to suggest that the entire industry changed just for that.
And it didn't change for that.
All anyone has to do is look up the study, and they'll find that out.
It was actually a technical issue not a racial one.
Who do you think created the film and then fixed it?
@@AmyKingPoet the Chinese? Who cares
Chris Applewhite
Kodak in Rochester, NY. The film was originally calibrated to the "Shirley" card skin tones, that of a white woman.
Black people were treated poorly by Kodak and enacted the segregationist attitudes of the times. Only later did they optimize the technology for black skin tones. It wasn't that they couldn't originally; they CHOSE not to do so.
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/09/05/roch-s05.html
FrostBug
Exactly why do you think the technical limitations existed? Film was capable of capturing black people, but Kodak didn't calibrate it for darker tones until later. They developed film to capture white skin. That was a choice. They could have, at the same time, attuned film for darker tones. This wasn't some "advancement". This was a choice, a limitation, that Kodak chose for film.
Further, as I linked above, Kodak itself practiced the racism of the day with its own employees. I've provided a link above with that full, racist history for the lazy / folks who would rather pretend that Kodak didn't deal in racist practices and decisions.
Of course, it is far easier to say film was "technically limited" than to actually acknowledge racism. Denial is not, however, an actual argument or evidence. It's just self-enforced ignorance.
@@ganimated8862
First, logic doesn't obey stereotypes. Racism wasn't limited to the south. The north was full of racists too. What an ignorant, uninformed presumption.
Second, I've provided you with actual evidence and a link that Kodak adhered to racist policies that resulted in protests and eventually Kodak changed its ways. Kodak's racial bias within the company is proven fact. But sure, ignore such inconveniences for uneducated stereotypes.
Third, the technical issue you'd like to fall back on wasn't a matter of capability - the technology (film exposure) was already in place. Racial bias played out in calibration. The technology didn't have to be invented in order for film to capture darker skin tones; it simply had to be calibrated for all people, not just for the Caucasian girl card.
Lastly, ignorance is bliss. You'd rather deal in denial and stereotypes instead of actually addressing facts. The problem, including the bias within the company of Kodak itself, was "fixed" once the civil rights and social movements of the time changed the culture over the years. That is documented. But sure, pretend Kodak didn't deal in racism. That's easier for you and your pride.
"Chocolate and Wood" - sounds like a 70s funk/ soul group.
I want
@@theroyalcat7010 Chocolate or wood? If you want both, perhaps the order should be changed..
there was a group called hot chocolate
or someting related to the adult film industry...
if I ever get famous because of my music then imma name my band that
America: white and black people mixed in a photo, problem.
Me as an Asian: we didnt even think about that here.
cowgirl boots no one said that ever -_-
It’s honestly the same problem in Asia too. You don’t talk about it but it slowly brought about a feeling in most Asian countries that light skin is better. Why? Look at any old movies or pictures. So a lot of people in Asian countries try to use products that make their skin lighter mostly for better pictures. You don’t discuss coz it became a part of life.
beowulf555 the curse for a princes in a Chinese anime was her becoming black
black people aren't allowed in chinese mcdonald's
Brett C we know Asia’s racist lol
Absolutely, true... I went to photography school in the late 70's and Black people were hard to photograph, UNLESS you had a CORRECT exposure. Once I let it slip that I was perfecting my light metering, because I had to get the darker skin tones exposed correctly and my subject called me a RACIST!!! Obviously she had NO idea how film and light worked!
When you went to school in the 70s, I presume that they explained what dynamic range was to you... and why film couldn't pick up the areas in the shadows?
John Abbott I would not agree that shadows cannot be photographed, it just that they need expert printing due to extreme under-exposure. I used to be a B+W printer for 10 years in the 80's.
SynergyCeleste
"I would not agree that shadows cannot be photographed, it just that they need expert printing due to extreme under-exposure. I used to be a B+W printer for 10 years in the 80's."
You just wrote the phrase "extreme under-exposure", indicating that you:
1) know what dynamic range is
2) know that even when you use specialized dodging and burning techniques, the shadows have little detail
3) that color is way, way, way different then B&W. And we're talking about color. Yes?
John Abbott Well every negative is different and has different amounts of detail. There was a solution I used to dip the under exposures in that built up the emulsion more. Yes I know color is different but under exposure is still a problem. You're asking me about something almost 40 years ago! I haven't been in a darkroom in 30 years!
SynergyCeleste
I'm just SLIGHTLY younger then you are.
The fact that color film is harder to print details in IN THE DARKER AREAS is not exactly a secret. Its no secret that we're talking about COLOR film. That's the entire topic of this video.
Yes?
And that you had to dip the underexposed images into a solution doesn't dismiss the fact that it was underexposed in the first place, or hard to print because the detail DIDN'T EXIST.
I will now go pound my head against a wall, rather then try to continue a discussion with someone who is comparing printing color with printing black and white...
Ironically, when B&W film first came out, it couldn't photograph blue eyes very well. Blue eyes registered as white, and people looked like ghosts. Some actors with blue eyes would be told they weren't the right type for film.
That's very interesting. I wouldn't mind seeing samples of that if there are any around online.
@z w you say that as if being recist was a bad thing, being racist is a natural instinct in human beings, we prefer people within our own group. ask the blacks if you don't believe
Nataniel Recasi i wouldn’t say people stick to their own race but the culture they’re most comfortable with
Nataniel Recasi yeesh.... this guys on another level
cuando todo esto pase people don’t stick to the same race just people that have common interests or even culture and also yes being racist IS A BAD THING !! 😂
In middle school the _professional_ photographers they hired _every year_ for the annual class pictures could never get a decent enough lighting for the black kids' faces to be distinguishable. And that was less than ten years ago so it's kind of frustrating
Ok
Yup! Hated most of my school pictures for that reason. Most of the pictures washed me out or the colour was off. It's definitely gotten better within the past 5 years but we have ways to go!
It's kidda just physics, darker colours reflect less light, by definition a stronger light is needed to show contrast. Not racism, physics.
Exactly. My darkskin Chinese friend still has her highschool photo. She’s a grey smudge against the blue background.
@@gavxps1 I mean, building lights and cameras so they only properly portray light skin is institutionalizing racism into the photography process. Not willingly, neither with bad intentions... it just happens.
I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw the ‘Is Microsoft’s Kinect Racist?’ at 4:01
Nice to know
It did have issues identifying people of darker skin tones. So while the machine itself wasn't, the people behind were at least incompetent in their design
4:03 was even more embarrassing. I bet many heads were rolling in Google's image software department later that week.
Didn't you really watched the video or.... Focus more on what she's saying rather than finding flaws to make fun of.. That's not decent
Kinect is many things but racist? yes, yes it is
Kinda reminds me how the “peach” coloured crayon used to be called “skin” as if it were the only colour skin could possibly be
you can paint yourself with boot polish. you will turn into a overnight youtube sensation as a white women with brain damage,
@@toofunny579 you're the devil.
You're angry right now so I bet you've turned Red like the devil 👹
I thought because it is a "basic" colour. Like, when you want to colour skin, give a peach first or later to add some pinkish colour on skin eventho the drawing will be brown/dark at the end.
Not too coincidentally, that's another 'study' that Lorna Roth wrote about.
That crayons were once called "skin" is fact.
That "color film was built for white people" is complete ignorance on everything about the history of film.
Go read her study. Its based in ignorance.
Seems like people didn't really watch the video. Also, physics and chemistry are not racist, but design can definitely be.
Design can be.
But in this case, its not.
Additive color was unbelievably compllicated. The end product wasn't to get accurate color... it was just to get *color*. And if you ever looked at the first color photographs? No one's skin looked accurate.
The improvements over time were slow going. If you know how color photography works (and Lorna Roth clearly doesn't) you would know the difficulties involved, and why it evolved as it did.
you think the inventor of color films was thinking, "I am an inventor who wants to give the world moving picture but with all of the beautiful colors the world has to offer, except for blacks. I'm gonna spend extra time making it worse for them." are people who invent right handed equipment trying to make life harder for left handed people?
Yea
that's very well put!
@@pretzelstick320 Rather they didnt focused upon black colour as mentioned on video all dark objects whether furniture or chocolate had a messy result
Maybe the real camera film was the friends we met along the way
Even using digital, I find dark skins very hard to properly expose. Not enough light, and there is no detail, too much light and it looks weird.
Yes that is probably because the camera was created by and for white people. It probably in a hypothetical scenario that in a wakanda society black was easier to photograph than white.
Nah man according to the video you're just racist
@@TugaThings Who is?
@@lucac3613 bruh what are you talking about lol.
@@lucac3613 No it isn't. It's because it CAPTURES LIGHT.
“The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.” - Albert Einstein
You will never reach your limits then , awesome.
STIN AGU Same with democratic sheeps
@@stin3000 will*
r/iamverysmart
@@GameOver._. HAHAHA no😂
This video doesn't seem so controversial, whats the problem?
white ppl trigger easly thos days
msms47 That terrible grammar.
More a spelling issue, to be fair.
The problem is people who do not understand basic physics and science and how light works trying to make everything a race issue.
Well, the video did states that the furniture companies and chocolate makers were the chief reasons for a better color film technology to be developed rather than making it easier for darker skinned people to be photographed.
I wish the Vox team would have tried to re-colorize the older photos to a more accurate representation so we could visually compare them to better see what the old film was leaving out.
Lies again? Chinese Food USD SGD
That's a great idea but I imagine that level of editing is beyond the budget for these.
Or maybe they just didn't think of it.
I'm sure 47K of you guys just watched the title when it's really just a technical issue.
Yeah, wonder why; it's just Vox, after all..........
The technical issue that only solved when furniture and chocolate company protest, not kodak try to accommodate other skin tones, that is the video's issue
Yeah, but they intentionally designed it to not be able to register darker skin tones. They were fully capable of doing it, but they chose not to. You’re ignoring that
@@shade221 0:51 watch at least some of the video before you make your big claims
@@7waterdrops_7 Nah
Shirley you must be joking
Don't call me shirley.
I'm sirius.
you got some nerve baby and that will never do!
I'm not! And don't call me Shirley!
You've got to be kidding.
Jeez, everyone here is trying so hard to get offended at this video.
Nowhere did they say that it was some racist conspiracy. All the video did was explain the history of it and how the process worked.
There is no real agenda in this film, no matter how much you want there to be.
people are getting married.
The video implies that film was based off of the Shirley card: true/false?
It THEN tells you that chemicals that being out browns were "ignored" or overlooked. yes?
As if chemists, in creating color film, had a choice of chemicals. yes? That's what they implied?
It then floats the whole idea that things didn't change until furniture companies complained, which is a giant hint that Vox had no f ING idea of the history of film, and that they didn't even read the study. it's. stupid.
Never knew the internet had so many easily offended white men.
+Chief
you're not reading.
many of those "white men" are actual photographers, and a good portion are not white.
this is about bad journalism.
"The fact is there is still a cultural bias towards lighter skin, certainly in how we use technology." as well as what Klwir Qldf mentioned: "technology should be the ultimate equalizer. . . without an inherent bias."
Definition of agenda from Merriam-Webster: "an underlying often ideological plan or program".
Don't get me wrong: I like Vox. They do a good job of covering a wide array of interesting topics that are (usually) presented in an entertaining and informative fashion. But you have to admit that they have an apparent typical liberal agenda, seeing as so many of their videos hone in on the race topic (because it will get views) often when it isn't entirely relevant to the subject being presented. If this video were purely about "the history of [color film] and how the process worked", then maybe it would spend less time pushing the aforementioned messages about racial inequality, maybe talk more about the specific mechanics of the vast and intricate medium of photography, and maybe make the title of the video something about the history of film and not blatantly about race.
And no, I'm not "trying to get offended." Your last statement is simply incorrect.
Less light is reflected off of darker colors so it's not as easy for cameras to capture them well without making the background overexposed.
Who is 'them?
Demon man
@@usingThaForce what
@@usingThaForce darker colors
@@usingThaForce darker colors are “them.”
Ye
It's more of a technical issue than racial discrimination. Film cameras back then have very limited dynamic range. They can't capture details in whiter skin tones and darker skin tones simultaneously. You expose to the whiter skin tones, then the darker skin gets too dark and you expose to the darker skin tones, then the whiter skin and possibly many light-coloured surrounding objects get washed out. Kind of like you take a picture at a bright window from inside a very dark room. You either overexposed the window or underexpose the interior. You have to choose to expose to either one. AND NO MATTER which group of people is chosen to be exposed correctly, the other group gets left out and thus it incurs a feeling of racism. But only when more advanced films were developed did this cease to become a issue, just like only when modern HDR was introduced did capturing bright window from dark room becomes feasible.
Theres a great poem out there somewhere called something like "what if all white women were suddenly black".
It basically detailed the difference that would take place that most people take granted, and somehow think they are just 'intrinsic' to people.
For example, this 'technical' issue you speak of.
The truth is, the issue is technical, but from a divisive stand point. If all white women were suddenly black, then they would have fixed the technical issue to work so that the darker skin. They wouldnt have just said 'oh well, we cant capture dark skin folks, and it is what it is....." no. They would have went back to the lab and made sure the issue was worked on until those darker skin folks. The facts are, the fact that darker skin folks didnt show well in camera is another bit of 'oh well who care'. They thought less of black folks
five words: did you watch the video
@@gyz9599 This is a myth. It's totally a myth. Color film science has never used Caucasian skin as the basis for emulsion formulation. Portraits weren't even the original market in the development of color film. Color film was developed initially for the nature and science markets, and they used (and still use) calibrated color patches to determine the accuracy of the color tones. Botanists and ornithologists were far more critical of color accuracy across the spectrum than portrait photographers.
Kodak created the so-called "Shirley" negative in the 1950s--20 years after their famous Kodachrome film was invented--because the US Congress broke up their retail consumer color printing monopoly. They were forced to give independent film processors all the information to process and print Kodak Kodacolor film, which included a test negative to calibrate their prints. The important portion of the negative was NOT the white woman in the picture (she was just there for "interest"). The important portions are the color and gray patches that can be read by a densitometer to make sure the numbers of the print matched specifications. I used a Shirley negative myself in the 1970s to do my own color printing (and I'm a black, btw).
Color film development never had anything to do Caucasion skin in particular. Companies were always trying to reproduce the entire spectrum satisfactorily.
@@kirkdarling4120 That sounds interesting. Just out of genuine curiosity, do you have any trustworthy sources for this that I can look for online? Like, some papers could help. Thank you for sharing.
This is basically just a chemics/physics problem and has nothing to do with racism.
This video is highly embarrassing.
If you read Lorna Roth's study, its worse.
Its amazing that she still holds her degree.
Not racism. I never heard anyone say racism, it was racial bias from that time in history. Sure, it was a chemistry problem, but when they were managing the colour balance, they focussed on white people, and since they were the majority in America they didn't bother trying to make it work for black people.
It's not direct racism, just indirect bias. I don't see how you can refute that.
EDIT: John Abbott, I just read your comment below, responding to someone else, and I guess you _can_ refute that.
My point *was* just that it wouldn't be a result of direct "racism", but it seems like this isn't a result of anything, all of this is just kind of hearsay.
If you photograph a black person under less than ideal lighting conditions, the photo will be really dark because the remaining light doesn't reflect well off of their skin. It's very rudimentary physics. This video is complete garbage.
Yes, because taking picture of dark subject or scene in low light environment was never something any photographer wanted to do before today...
Anything dark has always been an issue in photography for the simple reason it reflect less light and is therefore harder to get details out of.
Hush! If you deny that everything is racist you're being racist.
Holy fuck you make it sound like engineers intentionally make it so black people cant use their stuff.
+ratelslangen I don't think so. To myself, it seems as though consumers with darker skin were not considered by the developers/ scientists. Consider the historical context in which the technology was developed.
+ratelslangen It would be so much simpler if that were actually the case. Sadly, that is just how development cycles go. You build something, get feedback, improve based off that feedback, rinse lather repeat. So if your target market or test group is not terribly diverse, or even assumptions about how neutral your market is, then it can creep in to the final design.
+ratelslangen As an engineer. It's cost, not racism.
Engineers made black people look like shit and not be able to invent things. I kept telling everybody this until finally this video exposed it all. If it weren't for engineers, black people would be at the forefront of society.
AMERICA IS WHIIITE
To make the assumption that engineers of all backgrounds and skin colors would choose to harm a wide range of groups is beyond jumping to conclusions.
The color range was broadly understood even at the time, I have a polaroid camera from the 60's and the film specifically stated what type of colors it could pick up. For darker pictures of wood, landscapes, and skin colors, it suggested black & white photography since it could pick up the contrast much better. Color even of landscapes was not suggested and really came out poorly.
Even recently with electronic photocells, low-light is an issue, not skin color. The darker the image, the less photons are hitting the sensor. If you have ever seen a grainy picture in low light, you can see the limitations of the camera.
Being of darker complexion has benefits and drawbacks. Melanin (the pigment in skin) does a couple of things.
It absorbs UV rays before they reach important cells that would have caused sun burns, and thus leads to lower rates of skin cancer. But it goes both ways, the less melanin, the more light that is reflected and is able to hit that small sensor / fit through the small aperture in a camera.
This is just one of many avenues people are trying to start race divides / race wars. Ignoring simple biology, science and standard engineering practices does very little to advance humanity. But then again, like Mao Zedong said "To read too many books is harmful", remember, he did start a cultural revolution that tore down universities, beat up teachers, and turned them against themselves. Even today China has a large racism problem between very similar cultural groups. Is that what you truly want?
This video is deceptive on a number of scores.
‘Dynamic range’ describes the ability of a film to record detail in both light and dark areas of an image. Both film and digital sensors have poorer dynamic range than the human retina- these are simply physical limitations of the medium. This is why dark people are difficult to photograph. The video states that film companies didn’t care about dynamic range because they were racist, but in fact improved dynamic range has been a holy grail they have long sought after. The racism accusation is based on an entirely false premise.
The video makers also suggest that the filmmakers did not care about reproducing browns accurately. The reality is that the red, green, and blue layers of the emulsion are layered, with the top layer being the most brilliant. This physical limitation demands that a film be balanced towards red, green, or blue. Kodachrome and Agfachrome favored red (and therefore browns). Ektachrome favored blue. While color film improved over time, it looks like the video makers confuse technical limitations with racism here as well.
The video makers present no evidence that film chemists ever considered race in their product development. Instead, they must be racists because they invented a medium with inherent technical limitations. (Even today, a good practice is to overexpose dark subjects somewhere between a third to a full stop.)
Wouldn’t it be more reasonable simply to conclude that film improved over time?
The video makers are also inaccurate as to the date color film was introduced: ‘If you developed color film between the 1940s and the 1990s...’ Agfachrome was introduced in 1932, Kodachrome in 1935. If they get something this simple wrong, what are we to conclude about the rest of the video?
thank you for perfectly explaining everything wrong with this video
As a answer to your question, it's pretty obvious for everyone that film improved over time, but that's not something people would click on, if it had been the topic
I’m glad that there are some people who ACTUALLY know what they are talking about. But it seems Vox is trying to go so far as to say science itself is racist… I watched their video about how AI is racist… they know nothing of science, or maybe they want to say science itself is racist?
@@BlackWolf207 its just to cause controversy the left always try to incorporate race into stuff just as politicians do to get more votes so would a CZcams creator to get more clicks on their videos. They know ppl are obsessed with race especially Americans
This reminds me when I was younger and I used to take Snapchat with my friends and the filters didn’t work on me because I’m dark skinned lol it’s still going on today 😂
Darker things are harder to see... who would have thought...
@@Aron-ru5zk so?
With how good cameras are in 2020?
Segun modern cameras can’t break the laws of physics,
less light makes things harder to see, darker skin reflects less light which is the whole reason the skin is darker in the first place,
Try using some good lighting then the camera will probably see you better
@@SureEnough nice try but not the problem
This video has tons of misinformation and probably the people who make this has no real clue about this. Why people with darker skin tones are harder to photograph than people with lighter skin tones? because their skin reflects less light, if the meter is set to compensate for a lighter skin the person with darker skin will be unexposed, that's not racist, it's optics and chemestry, how many photons change the state of the silver halides on the diferent layers of the color film, and that's it, not a crazy racist agenda or something like that. Seems that this is one of these videos where Vox is trying to find racism on everything. And I'm mexican, not a white american.
^^^^
That is exactly what I was thinking. It's not racist at all! It's the fact that people with darker skin often don't have the large amount contrast from the background that lighter-skinned people do. Technology is limited and I have problems trying to get a picture of my dark-haired dog to look good when she is on a couch that is almost the same color. Photo technology simply relies on a lot of contrast.
They didn't say that it was racist, they said there was racial bias, which is true.
The Shirley cards were based on white women, and thus the accuracy of the colours on such a skin tone (nothing to do with exposure/contrast - this is colour balance).
Colours that produced a variety of reds, yellows, and browns were left out.
When furniture and chocolate companies complained, their needs were responded to.
Unless the background is dark, I would posit that darker skin tones actually have a greater degree of contrast. But as I said, we're talking about RGB colour balance and not light intensity or exposure, so the argument of contrast and light reflection is pretty much moot.
I agree that it isn't useful to look for racism in everything, but the same goes for denying racial bias. Their major consumer base was white people so they took the shortcut of only tailoring their product thus. It happens.
Utter BS and ignorance.....!!!!
4K and 8K video shooting shows people of color "gloriously"......However, Its not the technology, it's the usage of 'said' technology to enforce preconceived and hence negative stereotypes on how skin pigmentation is perceived....THAT IS THE REALITY......it's the MIND and NOT the MEANS..!!!
Why negate subjectiveness and Agenda here??
Now, fairer skinned people (in the age of 4K plus) have become "more" reliant on body-makeup so as to hide flaws and "ageing"...
Professionals, with fairer skin tones working in front of camera (as an ever increasing reality) know "you only look as good" as the HELP provided by your LIGHTING TECHNICIAN......25 plus years concept !!
This is why fairer-skin-type professionals look 'different' in the "Cold Light of Day"....
+shetingles by the way, I 4got to give you "props" 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏 on the succinct manner in which you 'constructively' broke down the component parts to the issue (at hand) notwithstanding, the particular focus drawn on (and so as to comprehend) the elements pertaining and effecting UNDERSTANDING (in example) on HOW racial bias is perpetuated, in this very instance....AGAIN ! 👏👏👏 👌👌 💯
I'm white. This video did not make me feel guilty. Vox has failed.
That wasn't their goal. Your insecurity is showing.
triggered racist spotted
"The unfortunate history of racial bias in photography." Sure bud.
:( too bad...
:)
Why do you assume this is a "white guilt" video?
The reason the camera can’t track black skin is because it isn’t reflective if you have really dark skin soap dispenser sometime can’t detect your hand it isn’t racist it is just how sensors work
Bro they aren’t saying science is racist, they were saying the design was but pop off...
@@yescertainly5103 Yeah, if a light sensor does not react when it does not detect light it must be that the design was bad
Working OVERtime to remain ignorant.
@@lodovicoconrado3297 The idea is that if the technology had been made with darker skin tones in mind, we likely would have come up with different solutions that worked on all races, not just lighter skinned people.
@@lodovicoconrado3297 -Every- person reflects light. You know this.
Correct?
This is a myth. It's totally a myth. Color film science has never used Caucasian skin as the basis for emulsion formulation. Portraits weren't even the original market in the development of color film. Color film was developed initially for the nature and science markets, and they used (and still use) calibrated color patches to determine the accuracy of the color tones. Botanists and ornithologists were far more critical of color accuracy across the spectrum than portrait photographers.
Kodak created the so-called "Shirley" negative in the 1950s--20 years after their famous Kodachrome film was invented--because the US Congress broke up their retail consumer color printing monopoly. They were forced to give independent film processors all the information to process and print Kodak Kodacolor film, which included a test negative to calibrate their prints. The important portion of the negative was NOT the white woman in the picture (she was just there for "interest"). The important portions are the color and gray patches that can be read by a densitometer to make sure the numbers of the print matched specifications. I used a Shirley negative myself in the 1970s to do my own color printing (and I'm a black, btw).
Color film development never had anything to do Caucasion skin in particular. Companies were always trying to reproduce the entire spectrum satisfactorily.
It makes sense what you're saying, but I'm curious how you know all this information.
@@yaakovwaxman4807 Back in the 70s I had a government job that connected me with emulsion scientists working for all the major American film manufacturers of that day: Kodak, 3M, and GAF (it wasn't just Kodak...there was actually competition, particularly in the government sector). The history of film isn't a secret, but these days a person might have to go to a library because not all information is online.
@@kirkdarling4120 Ok thanks. Very interesting.
Kids eat the white part of an Oreo RACISM
Nabisco has been in on it for decades!
Camila Targaryen I don't I hate that part.... lol
Chu Yisu Don't hate me but same it had a weird after taste...
There's more black than white in Oreos! SOCIAL JUSTICE WINS!
Moonwalker917 True xD
Are we so petty that we have to construe technological limitations as racism?
It's like the aphorism 'people who believe in ghosts see them everywhere', except with racism. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
This has been a recent talking point for progressive left and what else do progressives obsess over other than racism, sexism and homophobia?
+Bobby Newmark sometimes a racist is just a racist
+kikirockslikecrazy And sometimes physics is just physics.
+Bobby Newmark it must be nice to live in a world where everything caters to whatever you believe. must be really simple.
+kikirockslikecrazy This isn't about belief or fact (as the far left has made abundantly clear), this is about narrative.
The self flagellating left have been spinning the tale that the 'white man' is nefarious and evil whereas all minorities (actual and self proclaimed) are morally superior by the simple virtue of just being pat of a minority group.
With regard to this particular story, notice how they failed to mention Asian skin tone, because it doesn't fit the narrative. Are we going to talk about yellow privilege next?
P.S. Sorry if I came across snarky.
Its almost as if bright things are easier to put on picture😅😂
Companies are going to create whatever panders to the higher number of the population. It’s called marketing , demographics, it’s not racist .
Do you believe that the first microphone manufacturer was biased against people with soft voices? That it was only created for people who shout?
As a photographer, the thing that I can't stand about this the most is that people are going to walk away with both an incorrect understanding of film... and an incorrect understanding of the history of film.
Film wasn't developed with one skin tone in mind anymore than microphones were developed so that we could hear just loud people. Just as it took a while to get microphones to the point where it could hear softer sounds, it took a while for us to get film to the point where there was detail in things that reflected less light... including people. Lorna Roth's study is horribly flawed, and every photographer who knows film is laughing/crying at this.
John Abbott if Vox made a video about racist microphones then I'd believe it because... well.... Vox. ;)
John Abbott yes it is. so nowadays microphone i think is still racist toward quiet people. (10$ headset for example)
Thanks, Ben!
Thank God, a fellow photographer saying what's what.
Thanks, Antonio. Its no surprise that its us photographers who find this to be the dumbest thing ever.
As an Asian, I am just laughing at the comments.
Alex Choi same
And if Asians invented photography this video would not have existed.
Kyle Bennett So true I agree with you~
Asians may not have invented photography but they are the major powers in the industry now. Canon, Nikon, Sony, JVC. Other than some high end professional Movie cameras Asians got them beat.
Right? Some people are so stupid.
Did you know that light is responsible to see colors. So if something is dark, you see less details. Wow. Try walking trough a dark room and then light it up.
Lol exactly. They're saying technology was made to discriminate when it's simply harder to capture darker tones accurately smh
I thought according to another VOX video that black people invented cameras and film
Doesn't the simple fact that a darker surface reflects less light make it far harder for a camera to discern what's there? That seems more like physics than some kind of technological racism.
carmium see even, physics are racist... Next time in Vox: How light is racist because it reflects less on black people
GTFOH
remember what the philosopher anita sarkeesian said?: everything is racist, everything is sexist, you have to point it ALL out
it could be more of both... but i don't think it was made for white skin purely because they didn't like black people but more so white people were the main audience... especially back then... but light physics is also something to take into account you're not wrong
Take it from an art student who takes photography courses, the optical challenge of photographing anything that reflects less light is a hurdle when it's next to something a lot more reflective. But the point here is that nobody seemed to take that into consideration. It seems that at first with the development of film technology darker skin tones were just looked over, forgotten about. And then later camera companies remembered that pale is the only tone of skin in existence.
"The unfortunate history of racial bias in photography." are you serious? CAMERA IS RACIST!!!!!!! Everything is racist to you racist people.
Not the camera is racist. How can a camera be racist? It is an object. But the design proces of the camera was racist. And the focus on white buyers was racist.
+Johanna Janiszewski A camera can most definitely be racist... just like the Confederate Flag is racist, and guns can be violent psychopaths and shoot people, spoons cause obesity, and pencils misspell words. See how anthropomorphism works? Neat, huh?
😂 I honestly thought this video was a piece of satire until I got a couple minutes in. There really are some pathetic people in this world.
Which means business is racist yeah? Gj, you just proved the point. "Duuuh but they need to make money duuuuh"
Or maybe, as someone who went to school for photography and learned all about this, primary colors were used to bring color into film. And since the technology of the time is primitive by today's standards, this was the best that they could do. The pentaprism was designed for light to be refracted and there was a shutter with an aperture setting. These were purely mechanical cameras and it was not until Minolta devised a TTL metering system(through the lens) did taking pictures with dark skin or tones improve.
Maybe there is truth the saying, "You can't see them in the dark, unless they're smiling"
First, let me state that I believe 'VOX' to be a superb producer of 'inner-nerd' content, however, I found the following statement, near the end of the segment, 'Technology should be the ultimate equalizer', to be shockingly naive, if one lives in the world of what 'should be', he is all the more blind to 'what is'.
nick evans Could you explain your statement at the end to me?
@@0_plusultra17 nick might be Racist my guy.
The light is racist it doesn't bounce of darker skin colors as well making darker people less visible. You could say it's racist towards red heads and albinos like me who look like a white face with no features when taking a group pic on a sunny day. I'm like the ghost among the smiling faces in every hiking pic. :-p
+fernando torrera Do SJW groups know about this outrage???, the people need to know that the universe is racist!!!!
+fernando torrera no see but your not african american so its clearly not racists its mechanical
thank you
aren't gingers a minority? they only make up 2% of the population!
+Lander Williamson Aren't people of African descent also a minority in developed countries?
We should still develop technologies for equality even if they are for a minority of people.
My guitar is racially biased. When Jimi Hendrix played a Fender Strat he sounded great but when I play one it sounds like crap.
This should have 420 likes by now
It should have _zero_, but then again, what's to be expected from idiots like you?
You are a very tolerant person. It's the 5s I hate. You know who really loved his 5s? Hitler! Nuff said.
Seriously? What is next? Is the daytime racist for not being nighttime? Are you racist for being afraid of the dark?
No one is calling science racist lol
@@Mimi-mq2wj Micro aggression. I'm offended that you truly believed that I thought the entire category of "science" was in jeopardy of being considered racist. How dare you.
"Hey! You can't use that type of film! It's racist!"
Funny you should have a shot of Nichelle Nichols & Shatner in there: in Stephen Whitfield's book about "The Making of Star Trek", written in the late 60s, he talks about how difficult it was for the lighting people to get her skin tone right. It took twice as long to light her than the white actors but they adored her so they put in the extra time. They had to fight the film balance every step of the way to make her look good on-screen.
It was still that way up until a short time ago.
People don't realize what a miracle of chemical engineering film was. Or how long it took to get it close to right.
Well, the lighting people succeeded, because Uhura looked fabulous every time!
Uhura always looked beautiful. It was the 60s and they did a better job with lighting than some movies and TV shows on in our tech filled 21st century.
Can you cite the page number on which that information appears in "The Making of Star Trek"? I have a copy of that book and I don't recall reading that anywhere. I'm not saying it isn't true, but maybe you're remembering something you read elsewhere?
yup, exactly, and not, oh film is for white people
3:30: What an utter fabrication. The reason the camera didn't follow the black guy is because it uses contrast to look for the shapes of a human face (mainly the relation of eyes, nose, mouth and head oval). The sensor has quite limited dynamic range, and so it first needs to find some exposure balance so as not to over-expose parts of the picture. And what would you guess, they pointed it straight at some pretty bright fluorescent lights the background with no direct light on the people's faces. That means, the camera had to significantly down-expose so that the background wouldn't appear like a completely white blur, but that meant that the black guy's face would necessarily be under-exposed, to the point of the face detection not being able to pick up enough contrast between the points it looks for on a face. The white chick's face was just about light enough to make it still work.
So no you fucking liars, the camera isn't programmed ignoring black people. You intentionally set the technology up to fail on its limits and then dishonestly portrayed it as proving your point. Push the camera down a notch to get the room lighting out of the picture and put a light on the guy's face and you'll see it'll track just fine.
+totoritko The software that does this sort of thing typically comes with a companion set of information all put together and labeled "instructions". I know it's somewhat of a taboo for people to view instructions, but what you do in your own home is your deal. And you should at least try it once in a while (view instructions).
Considering this, programmers tend to put the very important information right in your face the first time you run one of these applications.
One of the first steps is usually, (and I'm paraphrasing here)... Get the large annoying photon emitter out of the fucking shot.
I remember years ago playing with face detection on an hp laptop with it's prepackaged little app. The first thing it did was show me WITH PICTURES, text, and a voice over, how to not fuck up the shot.
+totoritko When photographing a 'person of color', it generally requires opening up the f-stop at least 1/2 to 1 full f-stop....[that's been my experience]
Al Miller Sure, but the vast majority of el-cheapo webcams have a fixed aperture.
+totoritko You are completely missing the point here. Whatever you said is completely irrelevant. (The fact that those tech companies were able to fix the facial recognition is direct evidence that it was not lack of technology) The problem here is that technology is often designed by white people only with the benefit white people in mind. Its not just in technology, in many other situations, blacks and other marginalized groups are simply not considered. This is why we say that white people are privileged. It's the simple fact that more people looking out for them.
+Secularization Mordernization
"who will you sell your product to when 99% of your place is white?" I cannot understand what you're trying to say.
And indeed, more people are looking out for whites. If you think welfare is for black people, then you obviously need to do a fact check. White people get more welfare benefit then any other race, even though they only make up about 10 percent of people living in poverty. (kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceethnicity/) Read this if you are still skeptical. www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/28/food-stamp-demographics_n_6771938.html
I can't believe this is an issue
Cameras literally depend on the ability to perceive light
Source : photographer
This video confuses cause and effect. Early films didn't even render white skin tones accurately. But companies had to make products to sell to the majority market. It wasn't because the companies had some sort of white supremacist agenda, they just went after the money, as companies do. Now why white people had the money - there's where racism comes into play. But film companies purposefully making film to make POC look ugly? LMAO. It's one of the silliest myths. BTW, Fujifilm used to advertise that their color films were balanced specifically for Asian skin tones. Why? Are they racist against white people? No. They're making a product for the majority of their market. That's just how marketing and business work. The largest/most profitable audience gets catered to.
+furripupau Isn't that what the video said? It looks like you're trying to make out that the video has an agenda when it *very clearly* doesn't. All they explained was that the film was aimed towards a white market and didn't work on black people and explained why that was the case on a technical level. They then showed how the technology changed and gave some examples of more modern technology messing up with skin tones.
You see how there was absolutely zero "This is a racist conspiracy! Everyone should be super offended!" anywhere in that? You're literally making stuff up.
lol
furripupau 10/10 low effort response. You going to actually reply, or can I assume you're just trying to get offended over something just because it mentions race in some way.
Why would I be offended. You seem to be the one offended. If what I said is (according to you) the same thing the video said, then why even bother me about it? Seems kind of silly.
furripupau How am I 'offended' in any way? That doesn't even make sense.
I brought up the point because you were saying what you said as if the video wasn't saying that.
This definitely happened, but not because of racism, but because of technological limitations. I mean if black people were not being photographed well because Kodak didn't care for black people, I guess film engineers also hate wood and chocolate?
Ssssh! That doesn't fit the narrative.
+Mark Arandjus There must be a reason for not trying. Chemicals to make dark brown colors existed then.
Sune Kragelund Sandvad Yes and there's a reason we don't have holographic projectors now even though the things to make them already exist - technology takes time. The implication of this video is that if racists had their way we would still have poor quality photographs.
+Mark Arandjus That's exactly the point. People didn't care about making better technology until other people with money and business interests complained. It has nothing to do with changing because "better technology wasn't available" or "black people need to be represented". No one listens to the latter anyway. Better technology can always be developed, but only when people with money are interested in doing so and give companies that incentive to do so.
+indrinita
why do you believe in the ridiculous premise: that film companies didn't try to increase dynamic range in color film until chocolate and furniture companies complained?
Explain how that's logical to you.
One of the many prime examples of Vox's buffoonery.
How
@@hkgehts9061
She's trying to argue that the "design of film chemistry" favored people who are lighter, over people who are darker.
You don't even have to understand film (like I do, as a photographer) to know how flawed that thinking is.
Especially if you grasp dynamic range.
And it helps if you know the history of film, and then read Lorna Roth's study. She has abso-fricking no idea what she's talking about.
@@johnabbottphotography CAMERA SENSOR'S WHERE LESS GOOD IN THE 60'S OMG STOP ARGUING THIS IS OBJECTIVE.
@@LoseMillion
I'm not sure what you're arguing, since there were no such thing as digital cameras in the 60s.
@@johnabbottphotography Yes, the video should have mentioned that digital camera's where a lot better at detecting skintones
You could just say physics is racist, since brighter surfaces reflect more light making technology work for white people first. The process to make tech work for darker surfaces take longer to develop. When starting a new technology, you first start to make it work in basic situations and than finetune to include all possible applications. Usually thats what betatests are for, but since companys need to finance their research department, the earlier iterations hit the market. Imho that is just a logical consequence of physics and not intentional racism these days.
Isn't all direct-to-consumer camera technology designed to imitate the human eye ? At least in default setting ?
Why would you release something that isn't finished or at it's most basic stage when the knowledge of making it advanced is there?
@@nibirue a lot of suitable technics are patented, or dont fit the specific design needed. That often leads to the need to come up with a new solution to a known problem, even though a similar issue already got a working solution
@@nibirue first of all: because it was finished in its most basic state? Also you are basically saying: wheb the car was invented they should have waited with selling and just finance research for the next 100 years so it can be perfected? What kind of thinking is that?
@@Makes_me_wonder I think the problem is in lighting the film, which involves dealing with layers of chemicals and additive colors. The human eye also works a lot different than a camera does. I’m not so sure of the whole thing, but I guess we should just do our research.
I was honestly expecting the camera to make black people look some non-human gray or something
My family has some old photos of my great uncle, and I don't know if it's because of the film or if it's because the photos are just old, but for some reason while everyone else in the picture looks totally normal, my uncle is an awful grey color. It looks like the color of old ground beef it's so disgusting 😂
My Black Cat is difficult to photograph at night because he doesn't care.
Cmdr Benkai
My dog looks away when he realizes that someone is recording or photographing him.
I laughed so hard at that. Thank you.
Your cat is racist
Pretty soon ur going to argue with quantum physics
Quantum physics is racist cause the quarks aren't diverse enough.
String theory is racist because some strings are different colors
There are some technical difficulties in trying to accommodate the darkest and lightest skin tones. Products with lower dynamic range are cheaper to produce, and are companies are trying to sell to as many people as possible. The reason lighter skin tones are the ones most accommodated is because that's the largest chunk of the population. Not to mention most pictures are taken with bright backgrounds, so film designed around darker skin tones is going to need a wider dynamic range, upping the price if you don't want a blown out background.
so WHAT?
tHeRe'S nO nEeD tO cReAtE cAmErA tEcHnOlOgY tHaT aCcOmMoDaTeS a VaRiEtY oF sKiN tOnEs bEcAuSe tHe mAjOriTy oF tHe pOpUlAtiOn iS wHiTe aNd iTs eXpEsiVe tO aCcOmMoDaTe dArKeR sKiN tOnEs
@@sebastianfeuerstein9306 where in my comment did I say there is no need? All I said is that there was very little financial incentive. And if there were film produced for that purpose, it would cost more. And I have no doubt that film produced for black people being more expensive would also be labeled as racist.
@@sebastianfeuerstein9306 God I hate youtube. Some reason I can only see your reply when i click on the notification, but not when I click to see the replies on my original comment. Like, it clearly says there are 5 replies. So why can I only see 4? Unless, maybe, your a loser who blocks people without actual reason. Which is a possibility.
@@CaseyEm i'M nOt rACiSt bUt...
Holy shit I thought this was satire.
+Ariel Lezen
Nope. Vox. True believers.
+Ariel Lezen Yeah - sounded like a troll, but thinking back, film rendered colour has really changed over the years. There are photos that I just know are from pre-1970's, just something about the primary colours. They always remind me of the early ads I saw for national parks.
I won't cry conspiracy here - but what effect has this had on the psychology of people? I've seen psychology papers on white-bias that showed that even black girls found white dolls more desirable - could poor rendering of black skin in the media have had an effect there? This sort of sends shivers down my spine - a seemingly innocuous bias in technology might have had huge social impact over decades.
+Heather Spoonheim yeah I know, they should have worn their tin-foil hats to deflect all the racial bias in kodak film
+Heather Spoonheim
_I won't cry conspiracy here - but what effect has this had on the psychology of people? I've seen psychology papers on white-bias that showed that even black girls found white dolls more desirable - could poor rendering of black skin in the media have had an effect there?_
I sincerely doubt that, because it implies that black children associate more with images than they do their family, the people around them, or even their own selves. If black girls in this study were more drawn to white dolls, there may well have been a curiosity factor of a new face, in the same way as a little white girl might be curious about a black doll. Interesting notion, though; are children of any race raised with multicultural toys better able to identify with those races in later life?
+TheMightyFiction Well, firstly, children select their heroes fro the big screen, not their own household. Dad is cool and all - but Batman is awesome. The ideal of beauty in our minds comes from magazines, not from those around us. So, yes, children associate more with images than they do with their family, the people around them, or even their ownselves when it comes to forming ideals of beauty and desirable roles.
In the study, white girls chose white dolls as well. I like the idea of multicultural dolls, though - definitely sounds like a good idea.
Daytime is racist for being brighter than night
The sun is racist because it burns redheads faster than just about any other race.
so it means Night time is racist too for being too dark?
zCATAHAz excuse me? if you can't take the jokes in this thread, *go somewhere else* you sorry excuse for a human.
AHAHA stupid fk - same to you moronitto ,same to U... :]
Cisco Kid 😂
No way, you’re saying that a technology developed by Europeans was mostly fit to Europeans’ skin tone, who would’ve thought???
As much as I hate this comment: your right
you sound pretty racist ngl
@@aftershokke What's racist about what he said?
Ik did you know English was only made and developed by white people. I was particularly offended by that and think we need to switch languages
I vaguely remember a video camera (that directly writes into the VCR full sized tape) captured myself and my mom in darker color, compared to my dad (we are south Indians) :)
I shoot with a Sony I don’t have this problem .. all skin tones are green 😂
But honeslty it's all in the lighting and make up. the cameras can only do so much on skin tones with budget cameras
lol good joke man
Lool green cos Sony cameras are expensive.
@Edou Hoekstra 😂
I feel you. My first camera was Sony NEX 5n. You can imagine.
OMG technology is so racist
Howard Beale no, it just wasn't advanced enough to compliment the darker colors
Braincain007 I really hope you got the sarcasm in my statement
Howard Beale Poe's Law
This brings to mind how film tended to be pretty wonky when it came to other colors, too! For instance, speaking of STAR TREK, did you know that Captain Kirk’s uniform sweater was actually supposed to be *green*? It came out looking maize yellow, for some strange reason. (Early publicity photos showed the correct green on Kirk’s uniform, probably from a different lighting technique or different film stock.) Batman from 1966 was supposed to be blue, but came out purple-ish. And don’t get Harryhausen fans started on THE VALLEY OF GWANGI! (The title tyrannosaur was supposed to be grey, but came out purple.)
This comes as no surprise.
People that disliked the video really didn't listen to what it had to say. It addresses an issue. Simply that.
The non-existent issue. The issue was completely technologically but vox forced the racism into it
Why are Vox videos often so heavily disliked? I swear they have the worst viewers... If only people just appreciated the quality content
Some people struggle to accept the truth in the videos
exactly
Dominic Davis-Foster
Some people watch a video on the internet, and believe its the truth without reading what anyone else wrote...
Some people are getting tired of race (click) bait videos. Before this video, when you saw a black person on tv or even in older movies did you ever notice a problem... Well you do now. Now you get some extra time to contemplate their skin color... thank you vox for removing our colorblindness..
those people are truly idiots and think they have it all figured out. complete victim complex.
Honestly you guys are so sensitive. "This video is stupid blah blah blah". Actually watch the video, it's the history of how the film industry and other technologies are inherently biased and the progress of it. It's much more interesting then controversial.
Jordan Harb that's what I'm thinking too
Jordan Harb Its simple economics. Supply and demand. Blacks didnt have cameras like they do now so the demand wasnt there for a camera that could accommodate their need for better contrast or whatever. Cameras arent racist, Vox is.
Camera technologies weren't there yet, it wasn't racism. That's what makes the video wrong. Do you think camera companies didn't want a fully dynamic range of shading?
The video is literally wrong. The cameras were not designed to be racist or to favor white people. The more light the better a camera can make out details. Because black reflects less light back at the camera it was harder for the camera to make out the detail in a black persons face. You can see this same affect when you try and take a picture in low light environments and it always seems to come out with less detail than you would get if there were more light.
It was also built by white people.
If black people in Africa made colour films, which skin tone would they favour???
absolutely. what a way to create a problem out of nothing. clearly they worked in solving the problem and I'm quite sure it wasn't only because of the wood n chocolate thing. wait a moment: are you comparing a black person to a piece of furniture? shame on you! you're racist!
I don’t know if I am the only one thinking this but Imma shoot still:
This problem still trickles down into the modern day film shooter’s life (or more precisely the new wave of film shooters). The over-saturated interest, marketing and appraisal of the Kodak Portra Line (and permit me to say Fujifilm 400H) for portraits is off this same idea. ***IN MY OPINION*** Those film stocks rarely portray darker skin tones in the same valour that they do for lighter skin tones but because the Portra look (or Fuji look) has become so aesthetically pleasing, people often just neglect it as the ‘Creamy Portra Skin tones’ or overlook it in the name of consistency. On Portra, darker skins either have a green tint or reddish slap on darker skin tones, when you try to correct in POST. Yes, all film stocks have their inherent effects but then when one of the only film stock that fully flatters darker skin tones (or comes close) is marketed as a landscape film, what would you have us thinking (for those in question: I am speaking of Kodak Ektar 100).
Wow. SJWs just can't let go of that divide-and-conquer mentality, can they?
The image on the "Shirley card" is just a reference. The actual color balancing was based on those color swatches on the bottom edge. All the cherry-picked underexposed "examples" in the world won't change that fact. Go look at some some properly-exposed photos in National Geographic magazine (which was the first major full-color American magazine) from the early to mid 60s for examples of rich, well-balanced skin tones of _every_ variety.
Facial tracking software is based mainly on SHADOW CONTRASTS, especially under the brow, nose, and chin. It is easier to recognize this contrast when shadows fall on lighter skin. To paint this as some kind of ingrained "racial bias" is disingenuous at best.
By the way, the Star Trek clip of the Kirk-Uhura kiss shown in this very video gives lie to the claim that this problem wasn't seriously considered until the 1970s. That episode was shot in 1968 (and the series started in 1966, one of the first prime time series shot entirely in color, at a time when most households still only had black-and-white televisions). Yet throughout the series, Nichelle Nichols looks perfectly color-balanced.
This is race-baiting of the highest order. There are legitimate racial issues in this country that must be addressed (police profiling comes to mind), but color photography isn't one of them. Vox should be ashamed.
+phoenixshade3 10/10
+phoenixshade3 Well done.
+phoenixshade3 You're mixing apples, oranges, and peaches. Color balancing Kodachrome film is far different than color balancing video cameras or facial tracking software. If you've ever used a Shirley Card you would understand how it works.
The fact that Kodak introduced the Kodak Max film with different color balance and produced several different Shirley cards in the 1990s should be proof enough that there was an inherent bias in the film product and processing process.
The fact that there was recognition that color balance was an issue in TV studios and there was a technological solution to solve the problem (the cameras) also indicate there was clearly an unconscious bias that had been overlooked.
With respect to the Star Trek reference you made; do you know that there was not significant post processing to achieve the "perfectly color-balanced" image? I'd be willing to bet the prints in NatGeo were significantly processed for publication (another totally different process using much different technology.) The point was that there was an inherent (perhaps unconscious) bias built into the products. If you ever used a camera or developed film and made prints in the 1970s or 1980s you would be very aware of the issue.
Denying the existence of racial bias doesn't make it go away. Understanding that it is present is the first step to eradicating it.
+Ken Creary Sounds like you've never worked in a color lab or have no idea what you're talking about.
+Pete Gomez No, never worked in a color lab, but I've been working with film for the last 40 years. What's your pedigree?
As a black man, it is true but is this really unfortunate. The people developing film technology were not black, I think we could forgive them for not thinking about all the possibilities that the technology has to cover. As software developer I have done it often not thinking of all the possible use of the technology or being locked into a particular prospective or world view that may actually excluded particular set of people, some of these were blind or hard of hearing but does it mean that I hated then. If you can prove conclusively that the persons that develop film technology sat around table said "we are going to exclude black people" then no this video is just circumstantial evidence. Half the time my voice recognition software does not recognize my accent does it mean the software developer hates me. plus to prevent this form ever happening maybe we need more black people developing this sort of technology that is the real solution not this thing white guilt foolish. who needs people feeling guilty about the past this is worthless to me. I want to interact with people of today not reminding people of how evil their ancestors were, totally useless and pointless
I truly do not understand your statement. who is this Jewish person you speak of ? why should a bunch of nerdish technicians playing with chemicals care about divide and conquer?
Steve Spence
'I am a victim'
Is your entire post summed up
FemScout main
Stop projecting your overall lower IQ on those which are infinitely smarter than you.
Admit it, you did not actually read my post, did you?
;)
Thank you
Guillermo González Camarena (17 February 1917 - 18 April 1965) was a Mexican electrical engineer who was the inventor of a color-wheel type of color television, and who also introduced color television to the world.
People are like "Oh no 100 years ago people were racist" wow really? :0
The fact that its being recommended to me now during the flyod protests is really interesting
Its just to remind you that everything is about race.. Even camera film is racist apparently.
same.
Makes sense. I’m sure CZcams does it on purpose
It’s very shady
flyod
Interesting how you never mention that people with very light skin can be hard to capture in photos as well.
And the undead, no one ever talks about how bad they look on film lifeist bastards!
Ian Albert it is'nt racist anhough.
oh yeah and imagine white people in snowy weather... get more black folks to work on their skin tone, it's an egoism: when i develop something i will test it on me first.
Ian Albert Indeed, because they're not going to get a "revolution" out of that train of thought.
#ProgressiveStack #MostOppressedOfAllTime
roderick p. That's not his point. His point is that it doesn't ONLY affect people of colour, so it wasn't created with racist intent or discrimination against the minority at the time.
Hey Vox, this is probably futile but I'd like to know what song you're using at 2:10 and if it's available to listen to.
There are also problems with people of different undertones under different lightnings.
90% of the comment here didn't watch the video and didn't understand colour toning or even the art and technicality behind photo editing at all.
87% of percentages are made up.
+Rizki S. I beg to differ, I watched it, and basically this video tries to sell me a theory that the technology of photography of the past had some built-in racism, trying to make white people more photogenic and black people harder to photograph, which is - sorry - complete and utter bullshit.
boom baby I honestly think it is because market oversight. Racism was a prevalent and it was normal for companies to completely forgot that black people market exist thus why the contrast that was created by the film lenses didn't calculated it.
+Rizki S. I agree that racism was prevalent, but the fact that a black person simply doesn't reflect as much light as a white person (or a black sheet of paper doesn't reflect as much light as a white sheet of paper) is not racist, it's just physics. And that's what they built their lenses on.
A good photographer who knew how to handle his tools could easily take great shots of a black person (and there's tons of proof for that out there). But a black horse at dusk is always more difficult to capture than a white horse at dusk. This is not racist, it's the way that light works.
Thank you. I was actually surprised by the response. It's really a fascinating account of human bias within technological discovery, it's not an attack on being white.
Look at who's getting upset over this...
+Rashad well i'm not white and I think this video is fucking stupid
+Parker Johnson It was a limitation of their perception, not their capabilities.
+Rashad Do you have any idea how a camera works?
+EJEmerys Do you have any idea how racism and bias works?
+trizzytrix how is a surface not being able to reflect light well racist? does that make photos of the ocean racist?
That camera thing only following the white person is most probably due to restrictions in low light areas. We can see that they have a light behind them, making quite big shadows on their faces. Adding that to the low quality of the webcam, it makes sense. And I’m sorry, physics and optics are not racist, and it’s obviously harder to follow darker tones in those conditions, because cameras use light sensor, not dark sensors.
Not racist, Lighter skin color will reflect light better than Darker skin color. because darker colors tend to absorb light
Don't start yelling "RACISM!" just yet. It was just the market. White people at the time just had more expendable income & could therefore afford a luxury like a camera
And what's your word for a situation when white people have more expendable income?
+Eljan Rimsa a welfare state seeking to help blacks actually destroying their economic libido.
+Kailyn Smith it's still not racism.
I agree that slavery is a horrible system, but you forgot that after the civil war, all confederate war bonds & money was INVALID. That means that any wealth created by slavery was destroyed after the war. And another thing- around %1.5 percent of whites owned slaves, so it might actually be more racist to say "whites are only rich through slavery & black people cant be rich!" Everyone HAD a chance, but like I said, a welfare state destroyed blacks incentive to work. A system that seemed to help poor blacks actually harmed them, trapping them in a cycle of poverty & welfare. So whose actually racist?
By that logic racism doesn't exist because "it's just how it is".
Hmm wonder how it was only the white people who could afford the cameras...The fact that there is such a strong correlation between race and income is a problem. And when people claim it they aren't racist and there wasnt racism when clearly there is something going on when you have such large disparities in income as well as correlating with race...makes you wonder...my question for those who don't believe in institutional racism was...if it wasn't due to institutional racism then how DID white people get so rich while everyone else didn't? Surely you don't think it was because whites were superior or that blacks are inherently lazy? Because that would be making judgements and determining that someone is inferior on the basis of their race, which is the type of thing that racists do.
you know something has hit rock bottom when it starts calling color film is racist
Nobody dead rock bottom ugh I'm tired of the world
You know something has hit rock bottom when people can't understand that it's not the color film which is called racist but the process that made it.
David Daivdson Excellent post, and I love that it's factual, but if I were to offer one constructive criticism, it would be that you'd do everyone a favor by dropping the PC "_____-American" labels. This differentiates between Americans needlessly and promotes divisiveness.
.
"No room in this country for hyphenated Americans." ~ _Theodore Roosevelt_
The fact that anyone would call a technology “racist” for not being able to detect darker skin tones as easily proves how ignorant they are. That’s like being mad that a camera doesn’t take good pictures in the dark. It’s all about lighting, not racism.
ok
In their case, light is racist for not shining black people brighter
Dont hate on light its doing its best
This seems like more of a technical issue than a racial issue
Don't you know these days everything is a racial issue. Pointing out that it's actually a technical issue is also racist
Kodac made Kodachrome in 1935, one of the first successful colour material. They couldn't reproduce all colours perfectly from day 1, so at least they tuned it so that majority of their customers looked on this photos ok.
This material wasn't sensitive enough to capture dark skin tone or any dark object in that matter. So why on earth would they tune this material for dark skin tones ??? It would not work anyway !
80 years later someone made it a racial problem ...
Man, The Onion has a lot of secret channels nowadays.
XD
I'm not even on it..
...
I-
um
Vox: Because Buzzfeed having 12 channels just wasn't enough.
There's like 20 more
The word racist is racist..
Lmao. So true
Thats wacist and sexist!
Sorry that the person designing the product designed it to work for 70% of the population rather than 14%...it was really early in development
Just wait until we get to the talk about motion sensor sinks
Motion sensor sinks are so racist.
Something every single Black person over 25 knows, even if we didn’t know the history behind it. We all grew up with many, many photos that featured our color way off from reality. Especially if we were darker and took a photo with a much lighter person. Even Black film/tv actors were largely photographed and lit incorrectly during most of the 20th century. Looking at the early Oprah shows and comparing them to later shows this shift pretty dramatically.
Yeah that‘s how photos work. Try to take a picture of something light and dark, cheap cameras struggle to focus. That‘s not racist, that‘s physics...
Later Oprah shows actually have someone using a follow spotlight on Oprah's face.
I'm not kidding.
As a photographer, I noticed it.
The technology to create more dynamic range was *always * an issue from the start.
Lorna Roth doesn't grasp photography, at all.
Just proves my point that the issue was limited dynamic range. And that has to do with the laws of physics, not racism.
Sophie Lorber
Physics isn’t racist, but the fact that it took so long to people to try and fix it is.
@@runningwithscissors1524 So the reason why it took so long is not that it was a complex process that could only progress alongside the progress of technology through continuing experimentation but that everyone was racist?
Lol, a lack of dynamic range is now condidered racist xD
Why, in a white civilization and a white majority country, would you tailor your product to the (at the time) 90+ percent of the population/prospective customers?
OV VEY IT MUST BE THE RAYSISSSMS WYPIPO ARE SO EVIL
Stop spamming
Your use of commas is obviously guilt ridden and shows insecurity
dfjr1990 yes because using proper punctuation means they're guilty.
hola hello how are you
absolutely. I could totally see that used punctuation out of tribute. Had he use is Natural Instinct, he would have not even thought of using punctuation.
This is a bad argument... its easier to capture the light than it is the dark and so it’s the same with skin colour.
It's not that the light has a harder time capturing skin, but the development process left out chemicals that would make darker tones stand out better.
This is not racism. This is people knowing their market. Once the market changed, the product changed.
Right on. Mid-20th century Africans and African-Americans were less wealthy than other ethnicities, so they bought way less high-quality cameras. Making a product more expensive for a niche market isn't very economic in a time where Social Justice barely existed.
As a 100% black person and a 100% white man, I am 200% TRIGGERED.
What an original and funny joke, how long have you been working on that?
Nuclear Elevator During the video, when I Realized how unpopular this video would be to to a lot of people, and how moronic or genius of a move it was for Vox to post a video that would be so hated. Lmao, I'm just here to add some perspectives; and maybe some goofs and gaffs as well Mr. Sarcasmo.
GenJotsu you sir win the internet today
I want a genetic explanation of this
My personal identity is fluid, or so my psychiatrist says!
We get it, cameras are racist! :)
+Brock sator Just a little historical fact. The fact that it makes you uncomfortable says more about you than anything else.
+Chief
he wouldn't smile at this if this made him uncomfortable
+Dancyn He didn't smile.
Oh look an SJW.
Chief
yeah because his smiley face at the end isn't actually a smile at all? What made you think he felt uncomfortable back then? You poor creatures don't even realise the nature of free market.
Getting flashbacks to my old year book photos where I looked like a charcoal shadow with white teeth...
So what? It was just a technical difficulty
i don't think they were saying the original pinkish colour scheme was racist, they were saying that they never made changes or improvements until chocolate and wood companies asked for them to add the extra colours. they never changed anything until then even though it was obvious it wasn't working for those with darker skin
Why would you change if people are spending money on them and not complaining why would you change. It not about race its about money. Companies could give too shits about your race they are in the market to make as much money as they can that it end of story.
Tara they COULDNT make it work without computers so the fact that people complained about it and when they did is beside the point as the could do nothing about it at the time anyways
How do u know the camera was wrong? How do u know those people in the pictures just looked like that and had those skin tones
It's not racism Smash, as racism is defined by motive.
If I throw a rock into a crowd with my eyes closed and it hits a white person I wouldn't be called racist, I'd be called other names though. If it hits a black person, I'll be labeled as racist by quite a lot of people.
Never assume motive or bias of a person or entity unless you can prove it. You can damage your own thought processes and form biases, clouding your own effective judgment and perception.
It was a technological limitation they didn't change because of market demand, which was primarily by lighter skinned people.
It would not have been fiscally responsible to create a product with an extremely limited audience.
As demand changed, technology changed. If the demand changed and kodak refused to expand their color palette because they didn't want people with other skin tone/s using their product, that would be racism.
"racism is defined by motive" -- No it isn't. Racism is defined as the belief that people are superior/inferior to others based on racial characteristics.
This is absolute bullshit.
I learnt to develop and print both positive (slide) film and negative film at the physics school in my university. Film such as Kodachrome and Ektachrome were known for their fantastic colour accuracy. Accuracy was exactly what the film manufacturers were striving for, not skin tone looking good. When printing in the lab we checked our prints against the original or calibrated against very expensive color charts and none of which had any people on them.
There may have been issues in printing at the typical once ubiquitous corner photoshops. They tried to give the customer "pleasing" photos rather than accurate and generally failed. But that's not what Lorna Roth is saying. The film stock and the development processes had nothing to do with skin tone.
The problem is not color; it's the limited dynamic range of photography (that is why a brilliant photographer called Ansel Adams invented the Zone System). Film exposure is based on entire shot averaging to the shade of an 18% gray chart and if there are a lot of dark objects you need to force the camera to let more light in.
Digital cameras had less dynamic range than film but are catching up (I'm not sure what the consumer models are like at the moment).
Any real photographer could take photos of dark skinned people, it's just it requires knowledge and skill.
That's the problem.
They want it to be easy.
SPIDER LILIEZ Are you suggesting it should be easy? Because that is completely the opposite of what my entire argument is.
+spoddie -guess you missed the part where they demonstrated how the DR was intentionally biased toward the lighter shades...
+spoddie
And you were doing this in the 1970's?
+Stan Banos Film was biased towards 18% gray which is perceived as about 50% gray on a scale from black to white. The solution is increased dynamic range. Everybody wants more dynamic range. The specific problem that actually existed was I believe due to hue and saturation not so much brightness. But this video is just a rehash of things they read on other blogs so it's like a game of telephone.
“Awwww boo hoo. Let me play a sad song on the worlds smallest violin.”
- Mr Krabs
It's physics and technical restrictions. Lighter surfaces reflect more light for film and sensors than darker surfaces. It's a reason why your chrap DSLR and smartphone cannot make good night video.