Rongnongno Loc: FL

This is a discussion on technology whose base will be this article from NPR.

I find the article interesting and also quite an eye opener as I always found skin harder to shoot when it was not 'white'.

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

OK dark skin is more difficult for "so called" white sensors. If that is true wht doesn't some brilliant Arican American photographer/inventor develop a "dark" skin sensor instead of calling the camera industry racist. There might just be a profit possibility here.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

This is not about deliberate racism but about a technology that evolved around light skin.

There is no deliberate 'white sensor'. If you feel or understand this article as this being the case you are mistaken.

As a photographer I have had problems with skin colors. Even now when you purchase the called 'color chart' you will see that the skin colors are light, not dark.

It is an issue somehow but not as a racist one as the solution is technical not ideological. Any skin other than light skin is not reproduced as well as it should be.

Can photography be used as a racist tool? Yes, like everything else. This is not the subject here. The subject is how to solve this color tone discrepancy using the tools in our hands.

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

You are absolutely right; this is not a racial issue. If you take a picture of a bouquet of mixed flowers and compare it to the original bouquet, no matter how you adjust your camera, some of the colors of the flowers will be distorted. If you take a picture of a dozen "white" (or red or pink) roses of different species (I use the term species generically as opposed to botanically), you will have some roses that will show up differently on the photo. While sensors (and film) can be quite good at distinguishing colors, they are not as good as the human eye. And while we like to categorize people by color for the sake of identification, a "white" person can be pasty white or as dark complected as a tanning bed addict (or even darker, like a desert prospector I knew). American Indians can be very light shinned or so dark as to appear to be "black" or nearly so. African-Americans (oh, how I dislike that term!) can range in shin pigmentation light enough to pass for "white" (light pink, Caucasian, Anglo, "Red" or whatever you care to use to misidentify them) to (the darkest I have ever seen) near the color of teakwood. Sure culture has something to do with skin color; so does your family tree (mine is composed of at least three separately defined groups). So is no wonder that photography of a group of people with widely varying skin pigmentation will show some degree of inaccuracy - and not just with dark complected people. A temporary solution might be something as simple as a software program that allows us to compare a color chart to a person and render that person as an altered shade. A more complicated solution is going to have to be sensors (or film) that can identify AND RECORD many more variations of shade and software that renders each color accurately.

Oh, and as why I dislike the term "African-American" and similar terms, I abhor any term that distances a person from their own identity by inferring that the only thing making them unique is the alleged geographical origin of their ancestors. As for me, I am not white, I am a pinkish tan with very light markings (mostly scars) and brown spot (a sign of aging). And those colors are HARD to photograph accurately!

beamer01 Loc: West Palm Beach

Take break and read the article. No is claiming racism, there no need to alway be on the defense. especially since the Japanese are controlling this industry:-)

beamer01 Loc: West Palm Beach

To boberic
Take break and read the article. No is claiming racism, there no need to alway be on the defense. especially since the Japanese are controlling this industry:-)

rfmaude41 Loc: Lancaster, Texas (DFW area)

No? The title of the article:

"Light And Dark: The Racial Biases That Remain In Photography"

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

I know that racism is not mentioned in the article, howerve the point is made that the standard was white skin when Kodak set the standard. Thats the basis for the 18% grey card. The implication that darker skin is more difficult to meter because of the "white Skin" standard implies that a bias toward white skin being more acceptable is inherent in photographic standards. For some in this politically correct atmosphere this bias is called racism

DanRobinson Loc: Charlotte, NC

You have a white horse and a black horse in the same picture. How do you show the beauty of both?

http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/502732/502732,1304864383,1/stock-photo-white-and-black-horse-on-a-meadow-76776475.jpg

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

To whom was your remark directed? Please use "Quote Reply" when answering. If your remark was directed at me, I did not accuse anyone of racism; I was merely reinforcing the OP's comment. In fact, I am quite gratified that nobody is turning this into a race issue, but is responding on topic and in a mature manner. If I seem a bit defensive, it is because I am a multi-racial person who appears "white" and have always talked openly about my family tree, a habit which, too often, results in my being called a racist before I can more than two words out. It is helpful to me and other amateur photographers to hear how other photographers handle the technical issue of photographing multiple skin hues in one exposure. On the other hand, thank you for your sensitivity and concern!

Rongnongno Loc: FL

You just might want to read my signature...
:shock: :mrgreen:

Not a problem but, well...

As to the question using masking and selective adjustments. To problem with skin is that not only is not recorder correctly but the shade varies with each person and one size/color does not fit all...

Rongnongno Loc: FL

Oh man big bro is listening!!!!

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

Boberic, please forgive my delay in responding to your comment. Actually, there are those who have been working on the core concepts of what you are proposing for decades now; it is called the Zone System. Now before you burst out laughing or begin to harangue me for mentioning a system that does not directly address the concern, please let me explain. The variations in skin color are just a limited range of the colors we find in nature. Now, if we eliminate the "poetic" terms for describing skin, we would have a range from alabaster to ebony. Nine zones is not enough to cover every skin color, but a larger number might suffice. Of course, this would only apply to B&W (a process, not a description), but what would be the end result of taking a chart of as few as 16 million colors, and match skin colors until we had a subset the encompassed all identifiable skin colors. Then we develop software that allows us to correct every skin tone by comparing the color to the skin. There - problem solved........except for people like my very dark friend whose forehead furrows are a medium and my grandchildren whose (for the most part) cheeks an unnatural pink whom they come in from the cold or even me, who one day in the eighties, completed my participation in a mountain rescue, I removed my gloves to find that the beginnings of frostbite had turned the tips of my fingers almost the color of the snow. "Is a Puzzlement!" (King Mongkut, The King and I)