It's probably something many of you have never thought about, but for those of us out here who are not quite dark skinned, but not really light skinned either, it's an infuriating struggle to capture your actual skin tone. I usually never questioned my skin color, but with my digital friends implying that I'm "the light skinned" girl, I really had to sit back and think, "Am I?"
I've never identified as dark skinned, but I always thought of myself as brown-- no doubts there. It wasn't until I told my younger cousin about all of this recently and she responded with laughter, "You're not dark skinned, but you're definitely darker than that!" pointing to my photos on Instagram. She had a point. I am darker than that. So then, why am I so hard to capture?
Because no one has ever felt the need to correct the past mistakes of film so it seems. Since the dawn of photography and film, a camera lens has always been meant to capture light-skinned individuals. Up until the last 10 years, many of us brought our rolls of film to a lab where a technician worked off a reference card with a portrait of a light-skinned girl. Known as the Shirley card or the 'Color Girl,' her skin tone was the tried and true method of measuring what the human eye saw as "normal." And of course, she was always white.
With Shirley being the norm, what chance was there ever for the rest of us to be seen? Many people of color had learned to accept how they looked on film, either blown out or too dark to be seen, unless they processed their own photography. "We just hadn't become excellent photographers yet," many had told themselves. Now, I am aware that this inability to capture brown skin tones in their variety, wasn't our choice to make in the least.
Up until now that is. With many of us going behind the scenes to render our digital images and videos, we now have more control to fix in the post-edit what the camera lens still has not yet begun to care about. Sometimes, though I don't understand why the photography and film world haven't gotten their shit together already. Why do I have to process so much when this issue could be corrected?
First Look
French Connection UK Lace Tank Top (Size XS)
Zara Pinstripe Pants
Second Look
Easy Pickins black harem pants
Photos Taken With: Nikon Coolpix P7700