How the Photography Industry’s Racial Bias Left Those With Darker Skin in the Shadows (Quite Literally)

Source: Adobe Creative Cloud

In “Gender and Early Telephone Culture”, Michèle Martin cites a source stating that telephone-company managers believed “women’s use of men’s technology would come to no good end (1988, p. 23). This misconception is perhaps even more ill advised when considering a racialized view of gender in the context of the photographic equipment industry. Taking an intersectional approach and narrowing down the focus to gender in relation to race helps to accentuate the flaws of these technological industries, and shows how underestimated marginalized communities have to often forge their own paths to find their place in these contexts.

While two men — George Eastman and Henry A. Strong — founded Kodak, women have appeared to be paramount in establishing its legacy socially. This is evidenced by the advent of Shirley cards, named after the eponymous Shirley Page, a white, female Kodak employee who posed for the first photography film color reference card. Evidently so, her lighter-skinned features, along with those of many like her, would go on to be captured realistically owing to the technological advancements demonstrated by this industry. This gust of development, however, would leave behind a multitude of women of color, whose darker, pigmented skin would be engulfed by the…